Shattered Freedom Fighters
by Speedlion
Summary: It's 20 years later... Mobius has changed in a warring world. Ever species lives in his own country. The Freedom Fighters are spread around the world in groups of 3 or 4 members, trying to sabotage the plans from the countries. Joint fanfic with StarVix!
1. Shattered Freedom Fighters

**This is your life  
****Treat others right, live like you know you should  
****This is life, fight the good fight  
****Fight for what's right, do what you know you should  
__****This Is Your Life – Newsboys**

**(Disclaimer is down below, to avoid spoilers)**

Autumn was slowly turning into winter. The air was becoming colder, the chances of precipitation becoming bigger and the chance to get a cold becoming considerably bigger. The first two snow-squalls had passed and Mother Nature had planned much more of them to come. The Great Forest lay under a big load of snow.

The Great Forest has been a battlefield since 3242 between different nations, each nation containing a species. The most dominating species were the hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels, echidna's, chameleons, bees, coyotes, rabbits, humans and bats. Every nation was hostile to the others, for over 25 years now.

"But how?" you might ask. "How could they become so hostile? Why do they live in nations of their own species... why not in one joint nation, like New Mobotropolis?" Well... apparently, some species were not so happy with the so called "joint nation" and began to rebel against the Republic and react hostilely to one another. These rebel groups tore the city apart, and soon, NICOLE was shut down and every species moved to their own proclaimed piece of land.

What about Eggman? As soon as the wars began, Eggman was in the middle of them, but nobody's seen him ever since. He's been proclaimed dead. However hostile every nation could possibly be towards each other, they have one enemy in common... Freedom Fighters. You didn't think the heroes would agree with those wars, did you? And not only the Freedom Fighters, but also the Chaotix and others. They're spread over the earth and sabotage the plans of the nation they live in. But because each group generally consists of about five members, they can't achieve very much.

A green duck paced around four thin trees. To the mere passersby, it would seem as if he was merely staring out into space... in contrary, he was thinking about a solution for his newest problem. Three other persons, two weasels and a polar bear, watched him while noticing he was digging a ditch around the trees with his repeated pacing.

"Bean, sit down... Mobians have the ability to think without walking around trees, bewildering as that may sound," the male weasel informed the green duck, who obviously was named Bean. Bean seemed to not even notice the words and continued with his little marathon around the four trees.

"BEAN!" the weasel now cried to the duck.

The duck stopped walking and looked angrily at the weasel.

"What?"

"Sit down. You can make castle moats some other time."

Growling low under his breath, the duck sat down beside his friends. Only the wind made any sound by rustling through the leaves of nearby trees. The four people didn't care one thing about the wind. But when Bean heard rustling, without feeling the breeze, he knew they weren't the only four people around here. He tried to inform his three comrades about this fact by gestures, but it didn't help much. The weasels didn't even notice his attempts and the polar bear didn't get the message. Bean sighed, face-palmed and suddenly yelled:

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

Both weasels jumped 10 feet in the air and they could swear their hearts skipped at least five heartbeats before returning to their normal rhythm. But this reaction wasn't the only reaction. Behind them, hidden in some bushes, seven foxes jumped up and began attacking Bean and his friends with loud battle cries. Every fox had a scimitar in his hand. As quick as lightning, Bean's friends turned around and avoided the first few strokes of the foxes' swords. Bean blocked the next two strokes with his own sword. Behind him, a second fox jumped towards his back, his sword above his head, ready to strike. Bean noticed this and rolled aside and the scimitar only pierced through some snow and an unfortunate bug. Bean quickly retaliated by tripping the fox. The fox couldn't find much grip in the snow and fell onto the ground. The still standing fox now tried to slaughter Bean by chopping him in two pieces, but he had as much luck as his predecessor. Bean blocked the sword with his own, stood up as fast as he could and struck the sword of his opponent with his own sword with such power it sailed out of the fox's hands. Bean ended this small fight with his fist. He hit the fox so hard, that he no doubt could still see the birds flying around his head three years later.

He was know attacked by the other fox. He jumped at Bean, who only ducked. The fox landed on Beans back and Bean threw the fox over himself. After a short flight, the fox met a tree that insisted in getting in the way of his flight path. Bean looked around and saw that the other foxes weren't luckier than Beans victims. Only two foxes, a male and a female, were left and they knew it wasn't really smart to continue fighting, for the sakes of their lives.

"We give up," the male-fox said.

With that, he threw his own scimitar to the ground. The girl followed. The boy was a yellow fox. He had a purple t-shirt, blue jeans, black gloves and white-blue shoes. He had four tufts of hair between his ears. His eyes were orange. The girl was red, had blond hair, blue eyes, black gloves, a grey t-shirt with a cross on it, blue jeans and grey-white shoes. They both had a necklace with a little cross around their necks.

"What do we do with these guys?" the weasel asked.

"We'll take them to our hide-out," Bean decided.

"What would you wanna do with them... and what about the other five foxes?"

"Leave 'em. They won't bother us anymore." He walked over to the two foxes and demanded:

"Names!"

Neither fox said a word.

Bean smirked. "Aha... we're using the right to keep silent, eh?"

The male fox looked mockingly at Bean and smirked. "What're you going to about it? Beat it out of us?"

"We're the good guys, dude... good guys don't beat others if don't have to. If you didn't know that, you better get back to school."

"I'd rather not."

Bean smiled at the fox.  
"You're going to be fun to be around. Nack, Nic, Bark... take them to our hide-out," he said, walking ahead of them. He paused for a moment, turned around and said: "You can put your swords in your sheath. You won't have to use them."

The foxes were surprised when Nic, Nack and Bark actually did it. They now saw multiple possibilities of escaping.

"Come on," Nic said.

The foxes walked willingly alongside their captors.

"Star," the male fox whispered to the girl. "In three seconds."

"I didn't drop any food," she whispered back. "The three second rule doesn't apply, does it?"

"Star!" the male hissed.

"Oh, you mean _that_ three seconds…thingy. Got it." Star gave the male a sheepish grin, and then they counted down in their heads. One... two... three... and away they went, running as hard as they could towards the place they were captured.

"Why does everyone want to do it the hard way?" Bean mused. He plucked a bow from behind his back laid an arrow on it, aimed two seconds and released the arrow. It took the arrow all of two seconds to fly a few inches away from both the foxes' heads and pin itself into a nearby tree. Both foxes stood still, not willing to have an arrow in their head. Slowly, the four comrades walked towards the two escaped foxes. Bean sighed.

"I knew it... I just knew it. Well... since you now know you can't run away very quickly without having at least four arrows in your body, I hope you'll co-operate with us."

The foxes nodded and went along very well, not wishing to have a piece of sharp steel in their body.

"So," Bean said after 15 minutes of walking in the forest. "Would you now be so kind to give your names?"

The girl gave him a big, happy-go-lucky grin. "OK! I'm Star the Vixen!"

"Star!" the boy chastised her.

Star gave him a wounded look. "What?" she asked.

"…Forget it," the boy sighed. "Speed the Fox."

Bean smiled. "I'm Bean the Dynamite. My friends are Nack the Weasel, Nic the Weasel and Bark the Polar Bear."

Three minutes later, the group arrived at a little wooden house. As soon as they stepped inside, Speed and Star noticed they were treated like they lived in the house for ten years.

"Are you two thirsty?" Bean asked, walking into a small kitchen. "What do you want?"

"Red Hawaiian Punch with root beer mixed in it!" Star requested happily.

"Doesn't matter," Speed snapped.

Speed and Star looked around the room. The house consisted of 95% wood and was fairly simple. Here and there a chair or a bench and in the middle of the room stood a wooden table. To the left was a simple kitchen. Besides the front door there was another door, probably leading to the bedrooms, because there weren't any beds in this room, and Speed and Star didn't expect the four to sleep on the ground. Bark dropped on the bench. A few dust particles flew up because of the moving air. Bean came back from the kitchen with in his left hand a bottle with some transparent liquid in it and in his right hand a few cups. Bean poured the liquid in the cups and gave each person in the house a cup. Speed started to drink, but Star looked distrustfully at the cup.

"This doesn't look like red Hawaiian Punch with root beer mixed in it too me," she said. Then she perked up. "Hey, is it poisoned? I've heard that some poisons make your arms and legs twitch. If we drink this, will our arms and legs twitch?"

Speed abruptly stopped drinking and spit the liquid in his mouth back in the cup. A horrified expression crossed his features, no doubt because of the images of twitching arms and legs that were now dancing through his mind.

Bean drank from his own cup and then said, "Well... would you care if we poison ourselves too?"

Speed saw that it wouldn't be very smart to poison someone and then drink of the poison yourself. He resumed drinking, still sipping it distrustfully, but tasted nothing unusual.

Star also sipped her drink. She gagged and spit it out. "This is water! I _hate _water!"

"Just drink the stupid drink already!" Bean snapped. Star sipped again, looked two full seconds at Bean and then asked him:

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Pointedly ignoring Star, Speed quickly took over the interrogating. "All very nice and fantastic, but what's going to happen to us now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? What the heck kind of answer is that?" Speed yelled. "You've got to want to do something with us!"

Bean shook his head. "Nope. Stay here and nothing will happen."

Speed laughed. "Haha... Are you really so naive that you don't even understand we would take every chance you gave us to get away from here?"

"We're well aware of that."

'But... why are you treating us like this?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because we are fox-soldiers."

"So... when there's no war, we wouldn't lock you away either."

_'He's got a point,'_ Speed thought. "Why do you sabotage us then?"

"Because we're against these wars. We want the old times back."

"And what are those 'old times'?"

"Don't you know? No, of course not. You were born in the war, not before. Ever heard of Sonic?"

"Vaguely."

Bean walked over to a closet in a corner of the room. He grabbed some kind of laptop and after some searching, Bean opened a map marked as "Pictures". A whole bunch of pictures appeared and Bean clicked on the first. A picture of a blue hedgehog appeared on the screen.

"This," Bean said," Is the hero of Mobius... Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Hero?"

"I think you skipped a word in history."

"That's possibly the truth."

"I thought we learned words in spelling, not history," Star mused aloud. She was ignored.

"This is Sonic the Hedgehog. He has saved Mobius multiple times from take-over or extinction."

Bean began to tell them a whole story about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Afterwards, Speed looked thoughtful. "And... you were a Freedom Fighter too?"

Bean shook his head and the rest shook their own heads in rhythm. "No, the opposite. I was the enemy... a completely crazy enemy. But this war let me grow up." He stopped for two seconds and then said. "Why do you fight in this war?"

"Because they tried to conquer us."

"Can't you just be friendly towards hedgehogs?"

"Yeah... and let them take our country... forget it!"

"Why live in seclusion... why not live in a mixed society?"

"We have the right to live alone!" Speed said furiously.

"What's the difference? Why do you hate hedgehogs... because they're the enemy and can't do a thing about fighting against you, or because you can't stand them and just don't like them? Know that nobody needs to be hated if there's no reason to hate. What's your purpose in this life? Killing hedgehogs, without knowing why? Can you tell me what reason your country had to declare war with the hedgehogs? Tell me why your country couldn't talk itself out of a war... Tell me why your country didn't get allies... I know the answer... because your country wanted war."

"Whoa, hold on here... the hedgehogs declared war against us, not vice versa."

"Did your country try to negotiate? Did it ask for other countries to be its ally? No... the foxes had already declared war to all other surrounding countries and it didn't negotiate, cause it wanted the war. Don't you realize you slaughter innocent hedgehogs?"

All the information was a little to much for the two.

"I'll offer you the following: Help us with sabotaging the plans of your government."

It took a few minutes for Star and Speed to decide, but they accepted the offer and now officially were Neo Freedom Fighters.

A few hundred kilometers away from Beans hide-out, three people walked in the forest. The first one was orange and had two tails. Behind him was, a pink hedgehog with a red dress. And behind her a yellow flying squirrel followed them.

"HALT!" a voice of a fourth person ordered. The three people abruptly froze and posed the most weird poses. From behind a tree, a fox stepped in front of the three. This was seemingly a sign for other foxes to show themselves to the three. They were surrounded.

"Okay," the two-tailed fox said, "fresh meat to soften our knuckles on."

The next morning Bean awakened very early. With a yawn and a stretch he stepped into the living room. He went straight to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee, something he needed to start the day. A morning without coffee meant a grumpy Bean for the rest of the day. He walked over to the bench and sat down... but when you sit on a bench, with absolutely nothing to do, but drinking your coffee, you soon get bored. And like most people, Bean wasn't the type of person that likes to be bored. He put his green cup of coffee on his red saucer and walked to the closet. He grabbed his laptop and pressed the on-button. In a few seconds he stared at the screen. He didn't have games... go search for a game-shop in the forest and I assure you, you won't find a single one. He had internet, but it was probably the slowest ever. Maybe even slower than a snail, but we don't know for sure, cause we never compared their speed. But okay... he had internet... and after some browsing on different sites, coincidence decided he should visit the site that contains all the news of the Fox-country... the home page showed a great picture... and with that picture, every part of his body lost its exhaustion. He quickly read the story behind the photo and then yelled really loud:

"BARK! NACK! NIC! STAR! SPEED! COME HERE! THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!"

It lasted for a few minutes before they came into the living room together.

"What is so unbelievable... did you beat the computer at chess?" Nack asked.

"Don't be silly. Why would I possibly wanna play chess with the computer?"

"It was only a suggestion... tell what's so unbelievable then..."

"Sit down, shut up, and listen up!"

So the five sleepy-eyed friends did. Bean began reading the story:

_'Yesterday evening, Patrol 45 from the hedgehog-fox border took some very interesting people prisoner. Three Freedom Fighters were arrested after a long fight. The three Freedom Fighters are Miles Prower, better known as Tails, Amy Rose and Ray the Flying Squirrel. They await their execution the day after tomorrow in Vulpes City.'_

Bean looked over his laptop and saw his friends... the sleepy eyes were definitely gone... definitely. Amazement had taken its place. After a few seconds Bean said decidedly, "Dudes, I think we got ourselves a job."

A situation very similar to this played in Vulpes City... in every country, there is some resistance against the wars. One of the biggest in the Fox-country was called the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters, lead by Flight the Fox, a white fox with a black tip on both tails. (Why do you think she's called Flight?) Her long hair was braided down her back. She wore a purple shirt, a denim jacket, blue jeans, white gloves and red-white shoes. In her hand, she held the namesake of their group: A Kit-Kat Crunchy (White), something she always had with her, wherever she was. She had just read the same article in front of her team, consisting of five foxes and a hedgehog.

"Guys, we can't let this happen," she decided.

**Author's Note: **

**First of all, I wanna thank StarVix, Flightgirl and Yin Blaze for joining. Second I wanna thank StarVix for grammar/spell checking the story (if you didn't know, I'm Dutch) and making Star the Vixen's dialogues a lot better. And I wanna thank every reviewer already (FOR THE SAKE OF TAILS' LIFE, REVIEW!). If you wanna join the story, it's possible until the last chapter has posted. **

**Diclaimer:**

**I don't own Bean, Bark, Nic, Nack and the others from SEGA... cause their from SEGA. I do not own Star the Vixen, she belongs to StarVix. Neither do I own Flight the Fox, she belongs to Flightgirl. And so do I not own the hedgehog in de Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters, it belongs to Yin Blaze. **


	2. A Chaotic Rescue

**I need a hero to save me now**

**I need a hero, save me now**

**I need a hero to save my life**

**A hero will save me just in time**

_**Hero - Skillet**_

**Chapter 2: A Chaotic Rescue**

"Sssh... be quiet," Bean warned.

"I didn't say anything," Star said aloud.

The other five persons almost froze, afraid someone would hear them.

"I said: quiet!" Bean repeated, sounding a little ticked. "Or do you wanna be discovered?"

Star wanted to say something but her words were muffled by Speed's hand just in time. Only some murmuring was heard. Speed looked to her with a piercing expression and laid his finger on his mouth. Then his face scrunched up with disgust and he removed his hand, wiping it on the ground. 'She licked me!' he mouthed to the others.

"And now be quiet," Bean whispered, " I don't wanna be caught by those prison-guards." With that, he walked further through a concrete aisle.

"Are we somewhere near where we need to be?" Nic asked.

Bean looked at numbers above every cell, mostly empty. 243, 244, 245...

"They're in cell number 415, 416 and 417," Bean informed the others.

"Wait... I think I hear footsteps."

Indeed... A far-away sound very similar to footsteps could be heard. Bean drew his bow and said:

"If fate sends them here, I have no other choice then..."

He stopped talking when he realized the footsteps were already gone.

"I think fate chose to let them live a little longer," Speed said.

"Does anybody else think of the word goulash whenever someone says fate?" Star wondered aloud. "Or am I a freak?"

They ignored her and went on, glancing into cells as they passed by. Now and then a cell contained a prisoner, mostly hedgehogs, but overall, they were empty. But the more they got to number 415, the more prisoners they saw. 410... 411... 412... 413... 414... 415... Bean looked into the cell, where he saw a broken soul... the only thing left of Tails. Tails looked up and couldn't believe his eyes.

"B-Bean? Is that really you?"

Bean nodded. He got an iron wire from nowhere and put the thing in the keyhole. After two minutes a "klick" meant Tails had his freedom back. Bean pushed open and Tails stepped outside his cell. Amy and Ray were soon released too. And this all happened before the prisoners' eyes.

"Hey, no fair," an imprisoned hedgehog protested as they started to go. "Release us to!"

"Be quiet!" Bean warned.

"Only if you free us."

"Are you crazy? You think I can escape this prison with a hoard of prisoners following me? Forget it."

This wasn't the answer the hedgehog wanted so he screamed, "HELP! SOMEONE IS ESCAPING!"

Bean said some foul words I'd rather not describe here and grabbed his bow...

"Okay now, you fool... just yell something else and you have a hole between your eyes and that's very hard to repair."

The hedgehog stopped and decided screaming was overrated. But it was to late. Soon loud footsteps could be heard in every direction.

"Crap," Bean muttered.

"We can't let them catch us here... come on," Nac yelled while running in the opposite way they came from, followed by the others. They neared a crossing, but before they could reach it, four guards stepped into their way, coming out of a side-passage.

"HALT!" one of them cried.

Within two seconds Bean had his bow aimed at their heads. "Weapons on the ground, now!" he ordered.

Everything happened so fast it was nearly a blur after that. Bean saw one of the guards step to the side-passage, a sign he was about to bolt. Not even a second later he tried to run away, but before he could reach safety, Bean let go of the arrow and it pierced his leg. The guard immediately fell onto the ground with a loud yelp. The sight of their comrade falling to Bean's arrow panicked the other guards so that they turned and rushed off. But before the footsteps of those guards could no longer be heard, they heard yet more guards coming towards them.

"We need to get out of here," Bean said before moving into the side-passage the unlucky guard had tried to escape in. The others followed him... Tails stopped near the wounded guard for a moment, picked up his sword and resumed running after Bean.

Nobody knew that Bean and his group of Neo Freedom Fighters weren't the only intruders in this prison. And these other intruders were obviously the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters... well a part of them. Only Flight, a hedgehog, and a fennec fox had intruded the prison. The rest of the team was outside staking out the execution place.

"Enzan... is it nearby?" Flight asked the black hedgehog, while chewing on a Kit-Kat Crunchy (white, as always).

"Nope... but we'll be there in five minutes, I guess."

They silently walked further on. 411... 412... 413... 414... 415... But 415 was empty... and so were 416 and 417.

"WHAT! They're empty!" Flight gasped. Her Kit-Kat Crunchy fell onto the ground.

"Maybe they've already taken them to their execution," the fennec fox proposed.

"Can't be... The execution isn't scheduled for two hours."

"I know where they are," came a voice behind them. They all turned around and saw a hedgehog staring at them from his cell.

"Well... since you know where they, could you please hurry?"

"Release me first... I talk later."

Flight sighed but began releasing him. After a few seconds a "klick" told them the hedgehog was free now.

"Finally... after 15 years!"

"Yeah, yeah... go cheer somewhere else some other time. Where are they?" the fennec fox asked him impatiently.

"Freed by another group."

"By... another group?" Flight asked, surprised.

"Two weasels, a polar bear, a duck and two foxes. They went that way." The hedgehog pointed his finger in the direction the group went.

"How long ago?" Flight demanded.

"About ten minutes ago, I think."

They prepared to leave but were stopped by one of the other prisoners.

"HEY... you forgot the part where you yelled so loud, ten guards showed up and tried to catch them. And you did only because they didn't want to release you."

The hedgehog froze for two seconds, then abruptly turned around and yelled to the other prisoner. "SHUT UP! YOU'RE LYING!"

"YOU DID WHAT!" Flight yelled with fury. Flight seized the hedgehog by the collar and lifted him up.

"I..." the hedgehog began. He didn't have the time to say more. Flight threw him back in his cell and the fennec closed the door. The hedgehog was frantic. "You traitor! I thought we had a deal!"

"Do you think I want to release someone like you? Come on, boys... we already lost too much time."

They prepared to leave once more but were stopped by the hedgehog.

"If you don't free me, I'll scream again!"

Flight was now over her boiling point and almost exploded from her restrained anger. She turned around and opened the cell again.

"Don't do it, Flight," Enzan warned.

A "klick" was heard and the door was once more opened. With a conceited expression on his face, the hedgehog tried to walk past Flight, but that wasn't exactly what Flight intended. Flight stepped in front of him and hit the hedgehog in the chin, with such power he passed out immediately. Flight looked at him in contempt and shoved him back in the cell. The other Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters stared at Flight in awe.

"What're you staring at... come on," Flight demanded. With that, she ran past Enzan and the fennec fox.

Speaking of Bean, he and his group were chased by numerous guards.

"If I ever meet that hedgehog again, I'll show him the city, while kicking his butt all the way around it!" Bean muttered.

"Are they far behind us?" Nic asked.

"About twenty meters, I guess," Speed answered. "Hold it... we got two more guards in pursuit."

"Meters? Here? But I don't have any quarters!" Star gasped, freaking. "They'll tow my car!"

"You don't have a car, and it's not that kind of meter!" Speed snapped at her.

"Dudes... this isn't going to work," Nack stated. "We need to split up."

He didn't even get to finish his sentence when an arrow flew over their heads.

"This situation is getting worse by the minute," Bean said. They neared a crossing again.

"Okay, guys," Bean instructed the rest. "Tails, Bark and me go left, Nic, Nack, and Ray go straight, and Amy, Speed, and Star go right. If possible, we meet at our hide-out."

They came at the crossing and went their separate ways.

Meanwhile, the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters got lost in the numerous aisles and crossings.

"Enzan... do you have any idea where we are at the moment?" Flight asked without having much hope of getting a positive answer. Again, she chewed on a Kit-Kat Crunchy.

"I haven't got the slightest idea," Enzan replied.

"Hey, are that footsteps that I hear?" the fennec fox asked.

They stood still and listened. Indeed they heard footsteps.

"Noah's right, Flight," Enzan said.

"They are obviously guards... maybe they can tell us where Tails is."

They walked silently to the crossing and hid in their aisle till the footsteps were close enough.

"NOW!" Flight yelled. They jumped on the crossing and before two weasels and a flying squirrel. Obviously, this was Nack, Nic and Ray.

"Whoa," Nack said in surprise. He automatically pulled his sword.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Flight warned. "We only want some information."

"Never," was Nack's quick response. He tried to slice Flight in two, but Flight's training allowed her to avoid the strike without much effort.

"Then, we'll do it the hard way," she said while she tried to strike Nack's torso, but this strike was perfectly blocked by Nack. Flight's second strike also resulted in finding Nack's own piece of steel. Nack now tried to strike Flight in horizontally... Only Flight's reflexes saved her life. But she wasn't completely unscathed. The sword missed her body by a hair and sliced through the left side of her trousers, including her pocket. Four pieces of chocolate fell onto the ground. Flight gasped at the four pieces of chocolate that had once been her beloved, eatable Kit-Kat Crunchy's. She then looked at Nack in fury, who could almost swear Flights eyes were burning.

"Those were my last two Kit-Kats, YOU MORON! Now you're gonna pay!"

She tried to slice Nack in a thousand pieces, but her anger impeded her concentration. She almost lost her head when Nack tried to decapitate it. She managed to avoid the sword, only for Nack to kick her right in the face and she fell backwards. Before she knew it, Nack had his sword a few millimeters away from her throat. Noah saw this, and he sprang forward and attacked Nack. If Nack didn't want to die, it was best to block Noah's sword. And since Nack wasn't the type with the intention to die, he did so... just in time. Flight stood up to and joined Noah in attacking Nack.

"Ray, Nic, I need your help desperately," Nack gasped out desperately.

_"Wait... did he say Ray... he called a flying squirrel Ray... can it be...?"_ Flight thought.

"STOP!" Flight yelled. Everyone stopped fighting and looked at Flight.

"We're on the same side," Flight said.

Enzan and Nic looked at each other for two seconds with surprised expressions and then looked at Flight again.

"What was your first clue?" Enzan asked.

"The flying squirrel is called Ray."

Enzan and Noah dropped their swords.

"I'm Ray... What's wrong with the name?" Ray asked, crossing his arms.

"We came to free you but you were already released when we arrived at your cells. We're Freedom Fighters... The Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters." The last five words were spoken with a proud tone, that almost demanded respect.

"Couldn't you have said that a little earlier?"

"Guys... I think this is the right moment to give up," Speed muttered, surrounded by guards.

"That's probably the first smart words you've ever said," one of the guards said.

"I've said more smart words as a baby then you'll ever say in your life, moron," Speed snapped.

Nevertheless Amy, Speed and Star threw their swords onto the ground. Immediately, a few guards stepped forwards and put them in irons. One of the guards reached to his walkie-talkie and said:

"Gritham here... We got three intruders."

"Good. Have them executed immediately."

"I think," Bean said, "we are where we came in... we made it."

He opened a small door and as soon as he looked outside, he knew it wasn't over yet. The door was guarded by five guards, one of them trying to kill Bean with a hastily shot arrow. Tails pulled Bean down and the arrow flew a few inches over Bean's head. Behind them, in the prison, two guards ran towards them. Tails grabbed both Bean's and Bark's wrists and began flying up in the air. An arrow missed Tails' head by a few inches. Tails knew his luck wouldn't stay forever and the next second this thought proved to be right. An arrow pierced in his left leg. Tails gave a cry and looked at his left leg... The arrow had hit the bone and Tails suffered from the enormous pain.

_"This is hopeless,' _Bean thought_,' If we don't step it up I'll end up as a dead duck..."_

An arrow missed Bark's head barely... the next arrow made an end to this escape. The arrow hit one of Tails' tails. The pain was unbearable and Tails passed out. Tails, Bean and Bark fell 15 meters back to earth... they were immediately knocked unconscious. They were lucky not to be dead.

And to make a nice cliffhanger (something you all love), we go to a complete different location on Mobius... The border between the Fox-country and the Chameleon-country, a place where, on this world, the border between Suriname and Brazil is. The area mainly consisted of a dense, a very dense forest. Of course there has to be another Neo Freedom Fighter group.

"Cream!" a deep voice shouted through the dense jungle. A heavy looking gorilla pushed some thin and almost elastic trees aside without much effort and finally reached the place where Cream usually was... this time was no exception. And whoa... she has grown up a lot. Twenty years changes a lot. She didn't look like the perfect victim... rather the perfect hero, or the perfect fighter. She had more muscles, had become more agile and could fight very well. She looked up and saw the gorilla.

"Sergeant Simian... what's up?" she said with a cheerful voice... she never lost her cheerful, cute voice.

"Espio needs us. He's discovered something very important and wants to keep it a secret till we're all there."

Cream stood up and said, "I hope it's interesting."

They walked back to a small open space where an even smaller house stood. They walked in but didn't see Espio.

"Hey, where did he go?" Simian said surprised.

"You mean Espio?" a vaguely familiar voice came from left. They turned to the sound and saw the person. Their mouths fell open of astonishment. De big moustache, his big belly, his big nose... Eggman!

**Author's Note:**

**Again, I wanna thank StarVix for grammar/spell checking the story. I wanna thank N. Harmonik for the good ideas he gave me and I wanna thank Flightgirl, StarVix, Yin Blaze, gh43, Asher Tye, FlashHedgehog and Shadowspeed2020 for joining... And I wanna thank everyone who reviews.**

**Wanted:**

**I still need four foxes... please, please, please join the story! Other species are welcome to.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I still don't own Bean, Bark, Tails and all the other SEGA-characters, for they belong to SEGA. I do not own Star the Vixen. She belongs to StarVix. Neither do I own Flight the Fox. She belongs to Flightgirl. I do not own Noah Kessler. He belongs to Asher Tye. I do not own Enzan the Hedgehog... he belongs to Yin Blaze.**

**Stay tuned for the next chapter: Madness In A Madhouse**


	3. Madness In A Madhouse

**I'm not going down that easy  
It takes more than that just to break me  
I'm not going down without bleeding  
I'm not going down, down without a fight**

_**Now Without A Fight – Pillar**_

**Disclaimer is down again to avoid spoilers**

_**Madness In A Madhouse**_

_"This city's getting more rebellious by the day," a still young Tails said to a young Sonic, while walking through the streets of New Mobotropolis._

_"Yeah... and doesn't give me a good feeling," his friend agreed._

_At that instant, a lynx appeared out of thin air. Tails and Sonic both jumped aside, scared by the lynx's sudden appearance._

_"NICOLE!" Tails yelled after recognizing the lynx. "Why do you always..."_

_He was going to royally chew her out, but was interrupted by NICOLE's panicked voice. "S-Sonic... t-they're trying t-to shut me d-down." She disappeared leaving behind a very confused Sonic and Tails._

_"That doesn't sound very good." Sonic finally admitted while grabbing Tails' hand and running away._

_LATER…_

_Tails and Sonic ran through the forest. The dark night was being lightened by orange flames from New Mobotropolis. They ran with such a speed that they almost couldn't evade the trees. Every now and then Tails grazed his fur on tree bark. They didn't see the rope that was tied around two trees. And now you're probably thinking this is a horribly clichéd joke, but unfortunately, Sonic and Tails did indeed trip feet on said rope and fall flat on their faces. When they looked up, they already were surrounded by foxes, one of them attacking Tails. Tails rolled aside and avoided a lethal strike, but the knife cut through his leg. Tails screamed from the intense pain. The fox moved in for the kill, but before the fatal strike could land..._

"W-where am I?" Tails muttered as his eyes opened slowly.

He felt immense pain in his left leg and automatically tried to grab it, a natural reflex. But somehow, he couldn't move his hands or arms. Nor could he move his legs. Slowly he returned to reality. He now felt that a rope tied his hands together around a wooden pole. His legs were tied together in the exact same way. He opened his eyes and looked aside, where he saw Bean, Bark, Speed, Star and Amy. None of them had disappointed or afraid expressions on their faces. Bean, Speed and Amy looked grim. Bark looked like he always looked... surly. Star had the weirdest expression one could have just before their execution…you could see she was _really _bored.

_An hour ago..._

"Finally! We're out of that concrete labyrinth," Flight sighed, greatly relieved.

"Eh, Flight?" Enzan looked all around in a skittish way. "I think I've suddenly found myself in the center of everyone's attention."

He was certainly right. Every fox that could see them, was staring at the hedgehog in a strange way.

"We'll pretend you're our prisoner," Flight whispered. With those words, she grabbed Enzan's hands and almost crushed all the bones therein. Enzan's expression turned from skittish to agonized, which greatly satisfied the foxes, for they loved to see a hedgehog being tortured. Although for some strange reason, Enzan didn't seem to share their love.

"Flight, can you try to be less hostile? I was planning to have the use of my hand for at least thirty more years," the hedgehog managed to hiss through clenched teeth.

Instead of giving in into Enzan's pleadings, Flight squeezed his hand tighter.

"OUCH! I feel sorry for your Kit-Kats who're being squished before being eaten. If they were alive, they'd beg you to eat them as fast as possible!"

"I don't squish my cute Kit-Kats, cause they're squishable... you're not."

"I'M NOT SQUISHABLE!" Enzan shrieked. "I can reassure you I certainly have squishable parts in my body and one of them is sending me a signal it's being squished and squeezed this moment, as shocking as that may seem!"

Before any answer could be given, Flight saw something she had been looking for since they had left the prison: a candy store.

"A candy store," she said happily. "Nic, Nack, Noah, Ray... could you watch Enz... eh, I mean this very dangerous prisoner?" she looked teasingly at Enzan who only growled angrily. "I need to buy something of vital importance." With that, Flight walked into the store. After a few minutes, everyone could hear her screaming and soon after a very angry Flight stepped outside.

"What's wrong?" Ray asked curiously.

"Unbelievable," she muttered angrily. "Unbelievable... they don't even have Kit-Kat Crunchy's."

She walked ahead of them in a manner that nobody could catch up with her without running. She was in a very bad mood now.

After two minutes, they saw a second candy store and still angry Flight stomped in. Noah hoped for the well-being for the cashier, the store had loads and loads of Kit-Kat Crunchy's. Luckily for him, he obviously did, seeing as Flight walked out again with a Kit-Kat Crunchy in each hand. The rest was being put in her pockets and a still unknown place on or in her body where she kept the rest. One of the Kit-Kats was already bitten in half.

"I sometimes just don't understand why you can eat some much chocolate and still keep that slim," Enzan informed Flight.

"That's my secret and it'll be my secret till the day I die."

She walked further, now in a magnificently better mood and arrived at the execution-place, where the rest of the main Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters waited. Their names were Mar the Fox, Taylor the Fox, James Michael Summet and Matthew Mills. At least... they were supposed to be all there. But instead, only Mar and Taylor, sisters, were present...

"Where're Matthew and James?" Flight asked them.

Before one of them could've answered, a voice behind them said:

"Here, Flight... here Flight. We're here. We're here!"

They all turned around and saw two other foxes: James Summet and the hyperactive Matthew Mills. Matthew was a junior member and Flight sometimes wondered if he were really all…there, so to speak.

"Where've you been?" Flight demanded to know.

"The schedule of the execution-place... They're planning to execute Tails, Amy, two foxes, a duck and a polar bear in about 15 minutes," James reported.

"No way," Nack gasped, surprised.

"We need to free Tails and Amy!" Flight said.

"And Speed, Star, Bean and Bark," Nic added.

"Who?"

"Speed and Star are the two foxes... Bean is the duck and Bark is the polar bear."

"Do you know them?"

"Do I know them? Of course I know them! Don't tell me you've _never _heard of Bean the Dynamite?"

"Bean... the Dynamite... the bounty hunter? Wait... you're Nack the Weasel and Nic the Weasel, aren't you... the bounty hunters."

"Yes we are. I'm surprised you didn't recognize us earlier. Come on... we need to come up with a plan, guys."

"Oh, but I have a plan," Flight said. "A very good one."

The execution was like a attraction in Vulpes City. The tribunes around the sandy place where it was going to happen were completely filled with foxes, curious and excited about the event. Bean, Bark, Tails, Amy, Speed and Star were tied on a wooden pole. Opposite to them was a big, wooden gate, which was now being closed by several foxes, so nobody could get in. Suddenly the public began cheering. Seven foxes appeared on the sandy ground. One of them, with a lot golden medals on his uniform (stating he was a colonel), stopped and stood beside the poles. The other six foxes took their places opposite to Bean, Bark, Tails, Amy, Speed and Star. They grabbed their bows and put an arrow in it. The colonel raised his hand with a sword in it, and said with a loud voice.

"Ready! Aim!"

"Wait!" Star shrieked. "Don't we get a last phone call? How about a last meal? I could use my last phone call to _order _our last meal! Does everybody like anchovies?"

She was ignored. "Fire!"

It seemed like the universe was holding its breath as it waited for the arrows to fly towards their targets. Then, to everyone's surprise, the fox near the colonel aimed at the colonels leg and let the arrow go. It pierced his flesh and the colonel screamed before falling to the ground, unable to stay standing. At the same time a flying squirrel and a hedgehog pushed open the big gate. From the tribunes, two weasels jumped onto the ground, ran to the still tied Neo Freedom Fighters and swiftly cut their ropes. One of the foxes grabbed Tails, twisted her two tails and flew away with him. The rest could manage to run away by themselves. The rescue was a success. Everyone looked in awe and disbelief at the now empty poles. Only the colonel made noise, as he continued screaming in pain.

Of course, the rescuers were the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters. Their primary goal was to get Tails some medical attention. But it's hard to do such thing when you're running, while being chased by at least ten foxes who'd rather have you dead then alive. Flight grabbed a walkie-talkie and said, while chewing on a Kit-Kat Crunchy: "Näslund! We need you! Where are you?"

The thing kept silent and Flight had started to repeat her message when someone answered her question.

"What's wrong, Flight?"

"We got Tails, although he's wounded. We need medical attention for him immediately. Get some nurses and a doctor at our hide-out in the slums of Vulpes City."

"Already busy with it. Something more?"

"Nope, but I'll keep you posted."

"Okay, see you when you're there."

She'd barely managed to hang up when an arrow was shot in the air and came down behind the fleeing Neo Freedom Fighters.

"We need to split up," Flight decided.

"But we don't even know where your hide-out is!" Bean protested.

"When you're in the slums, you ask for me...Flight the Fox. They all know me there."

They arrived at a crossing. Star, Speed, Mar, Taylor and Matthew took left, Flight, Noah, Amy, James and Bean went ahead and Bark, Ray, Nic, Nack and Enzan went right.

And Star, Speed, Mar, Taylor and Matthew were the unfortunate ones eho chose the way the pursuing foxes went. They forgot the rest and now all chased Star, Speed, Mar, Taylor and Matthew. And Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters may have been in perfect condition, but Star and Speed been running the whole day which made them exhausted, while these foxes were fresh and closing in fast.

"Dudes," Taylor said, "We need to get into a building or something to lose those foxes."

"Good idea," Speed gasped. "There! That building's as good as any."

He pointed at the building while running. So the desperate foxes charged inside. But they didn't know that out of all the buildings in Vulpes City, this building was the worst choice ever. One of the perusing foxes paused long enough to scratch his head strangely and wonder, _'Why on earth would they try to hide in an insane asylum?'_

Luckily (or not) it was lunchtime and all inmates were in the cafeteria, and there were enough that the fugitive foxes could easily hide within the crowd. The five Freedom Fighters split up and held their collective breaths as their pursuers tried to scan the crowd. Thankfully, the guards gave up and left the building.

Speed quickly snuck to a nearby window and peeked out, biting his lower lip as the other Freedom Fighters made their way back to him. "Well, the good news is, they've decided they can't find us as long as we're in here," Speed explained.

"What's the bad news?" Taylor asked.

"It looks like their staking out the building," Speed replied, grimacing. "The instant we leave, we'll be captured."

The foxes paused, letting this news sink in. Mar paled slightly. "You mean we're trapped here?" she cried in despair.

Matthew tried to cheer her up. "Maybe it won't be so bad," he suggested. "I mean, look at all the new friends we can make." To prove his point, he rushed over to an inmate and grinned, leaning up close to his face. "Hi! Wanna be friends?"

The inmate stared at him for a long moment. Then he started to scream hysterically. Matthew started and jumped back as the inmate started to wave his hands in the air and took off running and screaming until a nearby guard tackled him and carted him off.

There was an awkward silence all around, until finally Star mused, "Well, he seemed nice."

"He did, didn't he?" Matthew said agreeably.

"I call him 'Gus,'" an inmate told the two of them matter-of-factly, having appeared next to them.

"Oh, really?" Neither Matthew nor Star seemed concerned with the newcomer, although Speed, Taylor, and Mar were becoming more alarmed as they started to realize just where they were trapped.

"Bye, Gus, nice to meet you!" Star waved after the still-screaming inmate.

"That's not his name, of course," the new inmate informed them. "His name is Steve. I call him Gus because Marty is a stupid name."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense," Matthew admitted.

Speed needed answers, and though he was starting to strongly suspect that everybody here was insane, the guy in front of them didn't seem too crazy…yet. The inmate was a brown ferret with bright green eyes, a glint of insanity flashing through them. He was dressed in a grey uniform like the rest of the inmates, and he had a nervous twitch that frankly, worried the fox.

"Excuse me?" Taylor was the first to try to confirm the suspicions they all dreaded to be true. (Except Star and Matthew, but then they might actually need to _stay _someplace like this.) "Is this a…madhouse?"

The ferret grinned. "Heck, no! This is a Crazy Palace! And I'm the lizard king!"

Taylor blinked, her suspicions confirmed. She just didn't know what to _do _about it.

"What's your name?" Speed asked. Maybe this crazy person would be able to help them escape. Or at least blend in until they could escape.

The ferret sniffled. "gh43," he replied sadly.

"gh43?" Mar tried to stifle her laughter. "That's not a name."

"It didn't _use _to be my name," gh43 admitted. "I used to have cool name. But then a hacker stole my identity! He didn't even have the GUTS to use his own name so I could hunt him down and kick his shin! He used a screen name! Curse you, gh43!" He shook his fist in the air angrily.

"Wait…you're saying someone named gh43 stole your identity?" Speed asked, confused. "But didn't you say gh43 was _your _name?"

"So I did," gh43 said, nodding sagely. "Hugbees!"

It was official. This guy was so nuts he made _Star _look sane. Speed backed away very slowly.

Matthew, however, was curious. "So what was your name before you stole it?"

"Render," gh43 said happily. "And I was a Knight of King Bob's food court."

"Cool!" Star said eagerly. "I've never seen a real knight!"

"And I've never seen a King Bob," Matthew added, just as eager. "What does he look like."

gh43 motioned them to come closer. "He looked," he said conspiratorially, "Like Bob."

"I knew it," Matthew whispered, sounding pleased with himself.

Taylor quickly stepped in between the three. "Listen, Render, we need…"

"I'm not Render anymore, I stole my identity!" gh43 yelled at her.

Taylor hissed. "Your name," she said, forcing herself to be calm, "is Render, and…"

"And I'm a knight!" gh43 snapped. "So it's Sir Render to you!"

The fox closed her eyes and counted to twenty. Then she smiled. "Alright, Sir Render…"

"Ok!" gh43 sounded panicked as he raised his hand. "Ok, I surrender. Don't hurt me!"

"What? I didn't…oh…" Taylor rubbed the bridge of her nose. Sir Render. Surrender. "Ok, ha, ha, you got me. Listen…uh…gh…we need a way out of this building."

"The door's over there," gh43 informed her.

"We can't use the door," Taylor explained. "We need another way out."

gh43 grinned at her. "Hugbees," he informed her. "You can't leave. You're crazy."

"We are not crazy!" Taylor insisted. "We're completely normal!"

"Normal people use the doors when they want to leave," gh43 replied matter-of-factly.

Taylor opened her mouth, but found she had no answer to that. She looked over to Speed and Mar helplessly. Speed just shrugged. Mar, on the other hand, decided to try her own luck at getting gh43 to help them.

"gh, we're Freedom Fighters," she explained. "And we're trying to get everyone to live together peacefully. But there are very bad people trying to stop us. They're going to try to capture and kill us, and if we leave by the doors, they will catch us. Is there another way out?"

gh43 scratched his head, looking thoughtful. "Are you crazy?" he asked quietly.

"No, we're not crazy."

"Then no," gh43 said simply. "The only other way out is through the Transdimensional Endless Chasm of Screaming, Falling, and Eventual Dying over in the closet over there. And only a crazy person would go in _there._"

Mar threw her hands in the air. "It's no use," she told her friends. "He's insane. We'll never be able to get anything useful out of him."

"I can do it," Matthew said simply, reaching over to gh43 and frisking him. In a moment, he grinned in triumph and took out a five dollar bill from gh43's pockets. "See? Told you I could get something useful out of him."

"Hey!" gh43 said crossly. "Gimme!" He jumped at the money, but Matthew kept it out of his reach.

"No," Matthew said. "We need something useful out of you, and this is the only thing you got."

"Mine!" gh43 said angrily. "Go get your own useful stuff!"

"No, we want _yours_," Star told him. "A way out would be the most useful, but since you don't have that we'll take this instead."

"I know another way out!" gh43 said, his hands on his hips. "And it doesn't involve doors or screaming and eventual dying, neither!"

"No you don't," Matthew scoffed.

"I do too!"

"Prove it!"

"OK," gh nodded and pointed towards the back. "Most of the windows are barred, but at the back of the building, the bars are loose, and you can remove them. The window opens to a really dark alley and…stuff. Now gimme!"

"Thanks," Matthew told him, giving him back his money. gh43 started to caress it lovingly.

"Precious," he muttered. "They tried to steal its from us, but we wouldn't lets them…"

Matthew and Star turned to their dumbfounded friends with happy grins on their faces. Then they wordlessly turned and started to run towards the window that offered the group a safer way out.

Their saner friends just stared, still dumbfounded. "How on earth?" Mar asked in bewilderment.

Speed just shrugged. "Forget it," he replied. "Just don't even think about it."

With that friendly warning, the fox swiftly led them to the back of the building. Upon reaching their objective, Speed tested the bars on the windows and found, to his surprise, they actually did come right off.

"Wonder why the guards never noticed this?" he wondered aloud.

"I bribe them with snickerdoodles so they leave it alone, duh!"

Speed, Mar, and Taylor all cringed at the sound of gh43's voice. Slowly, almost painfully, they turned around, and sure enough, there he was. Grinning like the loony he was.

"Can we help you?" Taylor asked politely, hoping he'd just leave.

"I," the ferret said gravely, "am going to be a Fighter Freeman."

"It's Freedom Fighter, and no, no you're not," Speed informed him. "You're insane, and the FF doesn't need any insane ferrets messing everything up for them!"

"At least I'm sane enough to know what a _door _is for!" gh43 snapped angrily. Then he cheered up considerably. "And I am coming, because that is my window, and if you want to use my window, you have to let me come too. Or…or I'll sing Billy Ray Cyrus songs!"

"No!" Matthew screamed in horror.

Star started to cry. "Not that! That's inhumane!" she sobbed.

gh43 considered. "You're right," he admitted, sounding ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"Yeah, well, good luck with your slow decent into madness, pal," Speed muttered, taking the bars off the window and helping Mar slip outside into the alleyway. "We are leaving. And you are not."

"Fine. Be that way," gh43 huffed.

Speed helped the other members of his team out, then turned to gh43 one more time, staring at him critically. "Sit. Stay," he warned, climbing out of the window.

Once in the alley, the five foxes hid behind boxes and trashcans as they scoped the area. "There are fox prison guards blocking the entrance to the alley," Mar whispered to Speed. "We need a distraction to get their attention."

"We need a stupid and heroic sacrifice!" gh43, who had obviously ignored Speed's warning, yelled in their ears. The guards turned towards the noise in the alley at the same time that the ferret rushed out, waving his arms wildly and yelling, "Shoot me! Shoot me!"

"That stupid ferret!" Speed snarled as the fox guards raised their bows obediently, a little bit stunned at the suicidal ferret, who was still ordering them to shoot him. Speed took off down the alley and tackled gh43, knocking him to the ground as several arrows sailed harmlessly over their heads.

"You crazy loon!" Speed screamed at gh43 as the guards rushed the two, grabbing them and yanking them to their feet. Although his hands were being roughly yanked behind his head, it didn't stop Speed from viciously kicking at the insane ferret wildly. "You could have been killed! You could have gotten _me _killed! Heck, you HAVE killed me!"

"Owwwww," gh43 complained in a deliciously whiney voice. "That was my shiiiiiiin you kicked!"

The guards were delighted at having caught something so they could leave the creepy insane asylum to the nuts it belonged too. So delighted, in fact, that they didn't bother to check the alley the two had emerged from to see if there were any more Freedom Fighters within it. They just dragged their two prisoners away to the prison, and their executions.

The four Freedom Fighters still in the alley watched them go with feelings akin to horror. Star was especially distraught. "Speed! No, we can't let them take him! He's my friend! The only guy who'll let me eat his desserts even if it's something he really likes!" she sobbed. "Who'll I steal desserts from if he's gone?"

"We have to go find Flight," Mar insisted. "She'll help them."

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own Flight, she belongs to Flightgirl. I don't own Star. She belongs to StarVix. I don't own Enzan... he belongs to Yin Blaze. Noah Kessler belongs to **

**Asher Tye, Mar belongs to Mar the Fox, Taylor belongs to NeverEnough15. Gh43 belongs to gh43. I do own Matthew and Speed. I do own Näslund to. **


	4. Too Late?

Hoofdstuk 4: Too Late

You can bend, but you're never gonna break me

I was yours, but I'm not yours anymore

Oh, you don't own me

Go ahead, put a target on my forehead

You can fire, but you've got no bullet

I was yours, but I'm not yours anymore

Oh, you don't own me

Dear X, You Don't Own Me – Disciple

The culture of earth, the society of the people that lived on earth before the first Xorda-attack, still had some reminders of it's society on Mobius. And one of the biggest were the ruins of Quito, back then the capital city of Ecuador, now a part of the jungle of the chameleon-country. The ruins were grown over by all sorts of plants and trees and mostly by moss. The once so proud, high buildings now lay in pieces on the ground, like fallen giants. Some houses still stood upright covered by loads of moss, but it was almost certain you couldn't live in those houses. Not so long ago, a battalion of chameleon-soldiers discovered these ruins by accident and now, every archaeologist on the face of Mobius couldn't wait to explore the ruins... but with the wars, the possibilities were restricted, which meant that the chameleons didn't let anyone even get near those ruins, but themselves. But because of that, a little problem appeared. Most of the chameleons were at the front in the war. But the government of the chameleon-country had a great solution for this: Let the prisoners do the digging.

"KRONOS!" a voice yelled. "GET YOUR LAZY BUTT OF THE BED!"

A dark-gray hedgehog with white tiger-stripes all over his body and quills shot up in his bed, placed in a tiny, little cell. With sleepy eyes, the hedgehog looked around his cell, where he had lived the last ten years or so. His eyes searched for someone in his cell that could've caused his awakening. Nobody.

"ARE YOU BLIND?" It seemed to come from behind him.

He turned his head and now looked at the thick, steel bars that had detained him all these years. Behind those bars, almost pressing his nose flat to them, stood someone he knew well... though he didn't knew his name, like everyone in this part of the prison. He was simply the head guard.

"Wazzup?" Kronos asked in a hoarse voice. He coughed a few times and awaited the guard's answer.

"You're gonna move to another place."

"Move... to another place? Where?"

"Dunno... Everything I was said is to get your butt out of your bed and escort you to some vehicle, that's now waiting for you... so hurry. Stick your arms between the bars so I can put them in irons."

Kronos stuck both his hands through the bars and let them be put in irons. The next moment, the main-guard unlocked his door and opened it without a sound. He was being escorted outside the prison, to where a vehicle was waiting. It seemed to be a normal prison-bus where prisoners go in the back. The bus was really full already in his opinion, filled by three hedgehogs, a dog, a tiger, a chameleon, a horse, a black jaguar and a few guards that were needed in the back, in case prisoners attempted to escape. After he stepped in and sat down on the last place available, the main-guard pushed the door back and locked it. Kronos looked for the last time in his life through a tiny window at the prison where he'd been imprisoned for at least ten years. The car began to drive away from the prison. Kronos looked back into the car, when he noticed everyone was staring at him. After a few minutes, it became agonizing.

"Say... can't you stare at someone else for a while?" Kronos mutterend, irritated.

"What's your name?" the tiger asked in response.

For a moment, Kronos was too stunned to answer this terribly irrelevant question. But finally he shrugged. What could it hurt?

"Kronos... Kronos the Hedgehog," Kronos said.

"King," the tiger introduced himself.

"King?"

"Yes. King is my name. Weird, I know, but I like it."

"Does anyone know where we're going?" Kronos asked to no one in particular.

No one answered. Or they didn't know either, or they didn't figure it worth the effort to inform him.

The journey was long... and although the car was lacking a clock, Kronos knew they'd been on the way for at least seven hours. There wasn't much to talk about so it was really boring for everyone in the car. They were all relieved when the car finally stopped. Kronos looked outside through the tiny window and saw a few plants and some trees. The guards pushed open the doors and as soon as they did so, the smell of forest, trees and leaves drifted into the car. One by one, everyone stepped outside. As soon as he stepped outside, he looked around seeing if there was any chance of escaping. Before him the road they were driving upon continued on. A rainforest was located on his left. Escaping in there was possible... if the guards weren't chameleons. All the guards were currently invisible. A hand from one grabbed him by his shoulder and pushed him to the right, where a fierce and big building stood. It had the size of an average secondary school building and Kronos guessed it had been one, before being conquered and almost destroyed in a battle. Again, he felt the hand of the guard behind pushing at his shoulder.

Already agonized by the long journey, Kronos snapped, "Hey, I can walk myself. I don't need help to do that!"

Without much effort, Kronos was escorted into the building, just like the rest that had been in the car. After some walking in the school-sized prison, they stood still at a door, that opened automatically, almost as if a ghost was doing it. He walked in and saw that whoever decorated the room, had _no_ taste. Pink walls, yellow floor and a red ceiling. Like a completely crazy painter with no talent was given a few bottles of paint and was told to do something completely evil with it inside the room. The sight was horrible. In the room stood a few beds made entirely of straw. The door was shut and a "klick" was the proof that assured them, they couldn't escape from here. Slowly, everyone chose a bed and tried to lay on it to get some rest. Little chance. The straw pricked in their backs and they knew they weren't gonna sleep on this in a thousand years.

"This seems like a great opportunity to introduce ourselves," King said suddenly. Everyone looked at him in a way that was clearly to be interpreted as; is this at all necessary?

Nonetheless, the tiger began introducing himself. "I'm King the Tiger."

He looked at the person in the bed next to him, a green chameleon.

"André Nilsson," he said curtly.

"Why're you here anyways?" King asked. "You're a chameleon."

"Not gonna say that. Not when a couple of chameleons can hear it too," André snapped. "And besides, it's none of your business, now, is it?"

That did it.

"You mean... there're chameleons here?" the dog asked him.

André nodded. "I can see them."

The next one was a green hedgehog.

"Flash the Hedgehog," he introduced himself.

Next to him was a female, black jaguar... a panther.

"Sage," she said.

"Gee, it's nice to see every one here is so _friendly_,' King commented somewhat sarcastically.

"Why would we do this at all... it's not like I'm dying to know you at all."

King saw that discussing with her was useless, so he moved on to the one next to Sage, a dog.

"JC," the dog told him without waiting for the inevitable question. He was a crossbreed between a Labrador and an Poodle.

"JC? JC's no name."'

"Those are my initials... I don't want those curious chameleons to know my name."

The next one was a purple hedgehog with a scar on his left cheek.

"Zone the Hedgehog."

"What happened with your cheek?" King asked.

Zones eyes began to flicker dangerously. "Does it bother you?"

"No, no. Just curious."

"Nothing you need to know."

The next was Kronos. They already knew his name, so they skipped him. A blue hedgehog was the next one.

"Highspeed the Hedgehog," he answered. "Flash is my brother."

Flash shot up from his bed and glared at his brother.

"Say it louder, why don't cha, I think there's a deaf little old lady on the other side of Mobius that didn't hear you!" Flash snapped at him.

"As if it really matters," Highspeed answered. Flash muttered something about stalkers before laying back on his bed. The last one was a horse, a Chestnut to be exact.

"Adaraschia Wingit," she said.

"Adawhat?"

"Adaraschia."

"I'll call you Ada for short," King said.

"What? No. Not Ada. Anything, but not Ada."

"This is useless," Flight muttered, concern filling her voice, while she chewed on an unfortunate Kit-Kat Crunchy. Before her, Nic, Nack, Amy, Ray, Enzan, Noah, Mar, Taylor, James, Matthew and Star sat on chairs. Star was surprisingly silent. She may be crazy, or act like she's crazy, but years of working together with Speed, build up a strong friendship... a friendship, not relationship. She was completely silent in the following conversation. Besides these people, there were two others in the room. The first one was Emney Näslund, a black fox with a black, leather jacket. The second one was Glass the Fox. She icy-blue fur and flowing blue hair.

"Eh... what do you mean by that?" Nic asked.

"Well... Tails, Ray and Amy are imprisoned. We free them, but not even two hours later, half of them are almost executed. So we rescue them, and flee into the city... and now, Speed's imprisoned with some crazy guy from the nuthouse!"

"Eh... his name is Sir Render..."

"gh43…he stole his own identity, remember?" Matthew pointed out.

"DOES IT REALLY MATTER"?" Flight yelled angrily.

Matthew felt like he shrunk to the size of nothing when Flight yelled at him. Emney cleared his throat and said, "I think we need a plan that doesn't involve leaving anyone in prison this time."

Really... that such was a silly comment that the rest almost burst out in laughter. Flight reacted differently.

"Well, well... as if I hadn't figured THAT out! Do you HAVE one?"

"Stay calm," Emney said, while gestured the same message with his hands.

"I AM CALM!" Flight screamed, her left eye starting to twitch wildly. She was now in a _really_ bad temper.

"Not in my opinion," Noah whispered to Enzan, hoping Flight wouldn't hear him. Unfortunately, she did.

"What did you say?" Surprisingly, she sounded extremely calm.

Noah looked like he was hit by lightning. "I eh... I said that... eh... you're... a great leader."

Flight blinked at him for a few seconds, but then said, "Oh... hmm... thanks. Someone, ideas for a rescue-plan…?"

"If I may," Amy said.

Everyone turned to Amy and looked at her, expecting her to come up with a brilliant plan.

"I think that our problem is that we use too many people to rescue people. We may be stronger with more, but it also slows us down and there's more chance someone gets caught."

Silence.

"So... you mean our rescue party should only have a small number of people in it."

"Exactly."

Again, silence.

"Näslund..."

"Yeah."

"Find out which cell Speed's been imprisoned in. Taylor, Amy, Glass... get ready... we're leaving in about 15 minutes. Flight turned around to walk out of the room."

"I want to go too!" Star suddenly blurted out, her eyes pleading.

Normally, Flight wouldn't have let her... they didn't need semi-crazy people on a rescue operation this important... but as soon as she looked into Star's eyes, she just knew she wouldn't have the heart to tell her no. So Flight nodded and left the room. She walked to nearby door and opened it. There were four beds in the room, three being filled by Bean, Bark and Tails. The fourth one was empty. Before Tails' bed stood a cat with a cream-colored fur.

"How are they, Amathyst?" Flight asked.

"Bean and Bark are alright, but I'm concerned about Tails. He's been unconscious since we rescued him from the execution."

Flight walked over to the side of Tails' bed and looked down at him.

'Why did they come here in the first place,' Flight asked herself in her own thoughts. She lifted her head up and looked at Amathyst.

"Try everything you can to get him better again," she said.

"Well... to be honest... He needs an operation. The arrow didn't just hit the bone... the arrow broke it."

Flight's face showed her shock. "You mean..."

"He'll never walk normally again, if at all, if don't operate him soon to get the bone back to his place. Otherwise, it'll grow wrong. And, unfortunately, I can't do such operation in my own," Amathyst said in a sad tone.

"I see," Flight muttered. Three knocks on the door and opened slightly. Emney silently came in.

"We're ready. I have all the information, but it's necessary I go along.'"

"Why?" Flight asked, surprised. At the same moment she remembered that Emney never did something if it wasn't necessary. "Forget the explanation... you can go along."

Emney gave a slight nod and left the room. Flight stared down at Tails again.

"I think you should go, Flight," Amathyst said.

"You're right." Flight nodded and left the room.

Two sets of footsteps echoed in the aisles of the prison in Vulpes City. Speed was being escorted to a still unknown place in the prison. He had been put in irons... He hated to be put in irons. they cut short his blood circulation and the effects left irritated, numb hands. The guard stopped at a door that looked different then all the others. First of all, this door did not consist of steel bars. It was a solid, wooden door. Secondly, it had a different lock on it. The guard opened it and let Speed in. The room was decorated with a table and two chairs, one on where a fox was sitting... a fox that he knew very well... his former commander.

"Reggils!"

"You still know me? I'm getting more famous every day."

"Shut up," Speed spat.

The guard brought him to his chair, walked out of the room and locked the door.

"What're you doing here, Mr. Smartface?" Speed sneered at his old C.O.

"I'm directed to lead the case against you." Reggils said matter-of-factly.

Speed laughed mockingly. "So I have a case now... what a difference compared to last time. Do we have a new government?"

"Not my idea. But I'm sure you already know you're not gonna win the case."

"Duh... the whole government is against me."

"However... there is a chance that you could stay alive."

"But..." Speed prompted, already knowing what Reggils was gonna say.

"Where is Flight the Fox's hide-out?"

"You're as stupid as always, huh? Do you really think I'm gonna betray my friends?"

"And just what does an insane girl matter in the grand scheme of things?" Reggils asked teasingly.

"STAR HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!" Speed yelled, jumping up. His chair fell onto the ground.

"I recommend to not harm me, cause then, you'll get your execution right-away."

Two guards stormed in the room.

"Nothing happened," Reggils said. "Our little army deserter just doesn't how to sit on a chair."

Speed growled angrily at Reggils. The guards laughed as they put the chair where it belonged.

"Are you sure you wanna be alone with him?"

"No sweat... look at him. What harm could he do to me?"

"You're sick."

"Thanks for the compliment."

The guards left the room with a smirk on their faces. Reggils had an extremely fake smile on his face when he said:

"Hmm... so it seems I hit a nerve as soon as I mentioned Star the Vixen. Maybe... there's something between the two of you?"

That was it. Speed couldn't stand his miserable jokes anymore.

"THAT'S IT! YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR NOW!" he yelled, while placing his hands under the table. He turned over the table with a swift move burying Reggils underneath it. The papers that laid on the table whirled around the whole room. In moments, the guards had rushed in again. This time, though, they saw it was serious. Before Speed could press his attack, they grabbed him by his arms and tried to yank him away from Reggils, who had just freed himself from the table. He had a bleeding nose and a deep scratch in his left cheek. Speed struggled to free himself and attack Reggils once more, but the grip of the guards was too strong. Reggils was not in a good mood anymore.

"Let that idiot pick up those papers and then throw him in his cell. I'm going to the bathroom."

With that, he left the room.

"Well... what're you waiting for, hothead... pick up those papers and lay 'em on the table." One of the guards threw Speed on the ground. Angrily, but obediently, he began to pick up all the papers that were spread around the room. After a few minutes, his eye fell on a paper that got his attention right-away.

_Hearing with Emney Näslund, concerning the plan to catch the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters all in once…_

'Näslund, Näslund... why does that name sound so familiar. I've heard it before, but where?' Speed thought. Without the guards seeing it, he put the paper in his pocket. Just in time... Reggils came in again.

"Still not done, moron?"

"What'cha think... you got more paperwork then I ever wrote for my entire time in school."

"Why am I not surprised to hear that... Oh, yes... you never finished school..."

"Shut up. That was all your fault!"

"Bring him back to his cell," Reggils ordered the guards, cutting of his conversation with Speed.

"Yessir... eh, do you wanna speak to the other one?"

"Bring him in. There can't be a conversation harder than this one was."

Before being carried away, Speed grinned wickedly, thinking, 'Oh, but there can be... and gh43 is just the one to do it.'

Reggils calmly reshuffled his papers, regaining his cool demeanor as the guards brought in a green-eyed ferret who was looking around in great interest.

"Which one of you guys is the bad cop?" gh43 asked excitedly.

The guard roughly shoved him into the seat.

"I'm guessing you are," gh43 muttered, grinning at the guard. Then he noticed Reggils. "And you're the good cop, ain't cha? You wanna be my friend, and help me through this so we can all go home! Well, it ain't gonna be that easy! BRING ON THE BOX!"

"The what?" Reggils blurted out.

"You know, you get these two lines, and you hook one to the Box, and the other to my…" gh43 looked down and Regglis coughed, interrupting his train of thought.

"I'm…sure torture won't be necessary."

"Aww…I like torture," gh43 pouted. "They do it all the time back at the nut house. Ever had your tongue glued to a power outlet? Woo, baby! You talking EXTRA cris-pay! And I got a tan to boot!"

"All…" Regglis shook his head, a sneaking suspicion nagging the back of his mind, but he wasn't sure just what it was. "All I want to know, is where Flight the Fox's hideout is."

"That's not how you demand answers, nOOb!" gh43 yelled. "This is how you demand answers!" He slammed his fists on the desk and said, "Would you like to suggest another target? A military target? Then I suggest you cooperate! Where is the rebel base?"

"What?"

"No, you're supposed to say Dantooine, but I blow up your puny homeworld anyway," gh43 laughed. "Because I'm an evil guy with a face like a snakeskin boot! And you shall suffer as I suffer! SNAKESKIN SUFFERING!"

A proverbial light bulb went off in Regglis' head. "You're insane."

"Well, only from a certain point of view, Luke," gh43 said calmly. "Use the Farce. This whole thing is a Farce! You're a farce! Farce! Farce!...Hey, do you know what a farce is?"

Regglis looked at the guards helplessly. "I'm inclined to believe this one isn't a Freedom Fighter…just an inmate picked up by mistake…"

"I AM a Fighter Forman! I fight for the freedom of formans! I…Ooh, shiny…" gh43 suddenly leaning in close to stare at one of the buttons on Regglis' shirt, drooling slightly.

"Get him back to that insane asylum," Regglis ordered his guards, and they nodded, taking gh43 and carting him off.

"Hugbees!" gh43 called as he was being dragged off.

Back in his cell, Speed grabbed in his pocket and pulled the paper from it. Seeing the date this conversation was being held, he knew it was just yesterday that this Emney Näslund talked to Reggils. And with every letter he read, his eyes got bigger.

"This dude knows everything about the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters... and he all told it to that devilspawn Reggils!" Speed muttered, shocked. He still didn't know where he knew the name Näslund from. A few footsteps were heard and moments later, gh43 and a guard appeared in sight. But he wasn't being put in his cell again.

'He's being taken back to that nuthouse,' Speed thought.

"Hugbees," gh43 grinned while walking past his prison. He threw a metal wire on the ground just before Speed's cell... the guard didn't notice anything. Surprised, Speed stared at the iron wire and slowly picked it up. He stared a few at the thing and then had strong tendency to slam his head into the wall.

'Why did I never attended a course on "breaking and entering"!' he thought, facepalming himself.

Yes, yes... it's true. He finally had something to escape, but now he didn't know how to use it. He tried to use the iron wire for a while, but his inability to make it work frustrated him until he threw the wire outside his cell.

'Never anything remotely useful away,' a voice informed him. Startled, he looked up to see who said that. He saw Flight pick up the iron wire.

"Flight," he said surprised. Star, Taylor, James and two other unknown foxes came in sight. Flight shoved the thing in the lock and tried to open it.

"Hurry," Speed whispered.

"I'm doing my best," Flight said. She look around and her eyes stopped at the black fox.

"Emney... could you look out for any guards?"

The lock gave a "klick" and Speed stepped outside. For a second, Speed didn't make the connection between Emney and the paper he had obtained. And when he finally did, it was too late. Emney pulled his bow, laid an arrow in it and said:

"You're too late... They're already here."

As if that was a sign, guards stepped into their aisle from side-passages. A quick look amazed Flight. She turned her head to look at Emney once again.

"Emney..." She said in disbelief.

Emney had an almost evil smile on his face as he said, "Goodbye, Flight."

He aimed at Flight and let go the arrow. Just as the arrow should hit Flight, Speed pushed her aside and took the arrow instead. The arrow pierced his body just under his chest.

"SPEED! NOOOOOOOO!" Star screamed, not willing to believe this was really happening. Speeds eyes closed and he fell onto the ground.

**Disclaimer: **

**Noah belongs to Asher Tye, Adaraschia Wingit belongs to CrazyNutSquirrel, André Nilsson belongs to eventyraren, Glass the Fox belongs to GlassSuicune, Amathyst belongs to ilusion-dark03, Sage belongs to janiemanie1993, JC belongs to JC303, Zone belongs to Kojiokida2, Kronos belongs to Mystery002, Highspeed belongs to Shadowspeed2020, King belongs to YolkaEd, Flight belongs to Flightgirl, gh43 belongs to gh43, Mar belongs to Mar the Fox, Taylor belongs to NeverEnough15, Star belongs to StarVix, James belongs to Teen Preacher and Enzan belongs to Yin Blaze... Neither do I own the canon characters... they're from SEGA. I do own Speed, Matthew and Emney Näslund.**

**Thanks:**

**I wanna thank StarVix again for spell/grammar checking and sheelaflower for beta-reading this story too (LOL... two beta-readers working on my story). I wanna thank everyone that helped me, Tailsisreal in particular. And I wanna thank everyone that reviews my story ^_^**

**Forum:**

**I have a forum for the ones who just wanna chat with me or others that joined or read the story... and you can ask your questions there... a sort of Q&A. Also, if you have constructive criticism, could please put it there in the topic "Constructive Criticism". Further on, I will place all the updates about the story. For example, when I finish a Dutch chapter or English chapter, or when it has been posted on the site, I'll say it there.**

**Stay tuned for the next chapter, chapter 5: An Unbelievable Fate. In this chapter, the following authors will be introduced:**

**Captain Nerdy**

**Kharma the Mink**

**Riku's Music Lover**

**Sammy Hawkins**

**Wilmar van der Plas (my brother)**


	5. An Unbelievable Fate

Hoofdstuk 5: An Unbelievable Fate

I don't wanna feel like this tomorrow

I don't wanna live like this today

Make me feel better, I wanna feel better

Stay with me here now and never surrender.

**Never Surrender by Skillet**

* * *

Part 1: Speed's fate

"Goodbye, Flight."

He aimed at Flight and let go the arrow. Just as the arrow would have pierced Flight, Speed pushed her aside and took the arrow instead. The arrow pierced his body just under his chest.

"SPEED! NO!" Star screamed, not willing to believe this was really happening. Speed's eyes closed and he collapsed to the ground. Not even two seconds later a second arrow flew through the air and hit Emney in the chest. He gasped his last breath and fell dead to the ground.

"FREEZE!" the guards yelled at them. Taylor threw her sword to the ground stretched her hands at the guards and shot a stream of ice at the guards, which wrapped itself around the guards.

"Freeze yourself," Taylor sarcastically replied.

Star ran to Speed and kneeled down to him. She felt at his wrist to see if there was still a heartbeat. To her relief, there was, although it was faint. She grabbed the arrow that had pierced itself just under Speed's chest and started to pull it out.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Flight warned her rather loudly. "He'll bleed to death. The arrow's the only thing keeping the blood in his body."

"But..."

"If you don't want him to die, then leave it where it is!"

Star nodded and swallowed a lump that formed in her throat as she looked at Speed. Flight turned to James.

"You carry Speed, James... If we're fast, he might make it!"

"But there's no way we'll get out of her in time to…"

"JUST DO IT!" she yelled at James angrily. "We can't be caught by those guards again... at all costs."

Loud sirens suddenly began to wail around the prison. Flight grabbed her walkie-talkie and pushed the red button to activate it, talking even as the small group ran through the prison, trying to avoid any guards. "Flight here," she spoke into it.

"Enzan here... mission accomplished?"

"No... totally not. Speed's lethally wounded and Emney's dead... the stupid traitor!"

"Emney betrayed you? Why?"

"I don't know... I wish I did... he had no reason really."

"Maybe he was just a jerk?" Enzan mused thoughtfully.

"Can you come here with Noah, Amy and Ray to help us get away?"

"Can't. A heavy snow-squall is raging through town at the moment."

"No way! A snow-squall?" Flight gasped. She paused, looking towards Star for the obvious quip she was about to give them about the inconvenient weather, but the vixen was so out of it, she didn't even look towards the frustrated leader.

"That's what I said. Are you gonna make it?"

Flight sighed. "I hope so."

* * *

Reggils, still in the room where he interrogated Speed and gh43, heard the sirens wailing too, of course.

"What the... this wasn't part of the plan!" he said as soon as the sirens began wailing. A knock on the door got him to his feet. After opening it, he looked outside and saw two guards standing there, giving him hasty salutes.

"What's going on?" Reggils asked the guards.

"Prison break in cell 565... One dead and one lethally wounded," said one of the guards panting from the running.

"The dead one... was that the prisoner, Speed?"

"No sir... some informer that betrayed the ones that freed the prisoner," the guard explained.

_'Emney Näslund,'_ Reggils thought stunned.

"Who were the ones that released the prisoner?"

"One of them is Flight the Fox. And another of them is that girl that was always with Speed. You know, the crazy one. Eh... what was her name… can't remember…"

The guard looked at the other one, expecting him to know her name. He looked thoughtful. "Uh…Moon? No, Stella…uh…"

"Doesn't matter," Reggils muttered, before getting lost in thought. The guards looked at him for a few seconds, but then quickly turned and started after the Freedom Fighters. A plan began to develop within Reggils mind...

* * *

The Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters were lucky today... without encountering a single guard, they reached a glass window. Glass hit it with his fist, causing his hand to get some cuts from the broken glass that fell onto the ground with only the jingling of the glass on the street making some noise. Flight took Speed from James and flew down. The rest jumped down after seeing Flight sign to them that it's safe.

"Where are we exactly?" Star asked, somewhat recovered from her shock, as well as disorientated by the numerous alleys in this part of the town... she knew Vulpes City pretty well... she grew up in it, but not in this part... She'd never been here.

"Wait... we're by the eastern part of the prison," Flight said.

Glass whistled. "I've heard of this part of town. They say that you can get lost in these alleys, and never find your way out again."

"Me an' James grew up here, so we won't get lost," Flight assured him.

"But if we're staying here, we're going to be caught... here they come," Taylor added.

A few guards stuck their heads through the window with the broken glass... one yelled something that they couldn't make out. The Freedom Fighters didn't really want to wait till the guards came down and happily arrested them... no, they ran away, who wouldn't do that?

"Hey, guys... can you slow down? I've got Speed here and he's not the lightest person in the world y'know? Not that he's fat... He's in fact, very slim, but still..."

"Less talking!" Flight ordered sternly. "More running!"

James sighed. "We're never gonna make it... if he gets there still alive, I'll eat my hat."

"You don't even have a hat!" Star informed him. "If you did, I'd shove it down your throat right now, and Speed would be fine!"

James sighed again.

"In here," Flight said, running in a side-passage.

"Wrong choice, young lady," a voice said. Before Flight stood two guards, both with swords in their hands. Flight automatically drew her own sword.

"Run!" she yelled. "Go... I'll do this!"

Everyone but Star and Flight ran further on.

"I said: RUN!" Flight yelled at Star.

"Don't send her away," one of the men said. "I've always rather enjoyed her company."

"Reggils," Star blinked for a long minute, before frowning unhappily. "What the heck are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you again. It's been so long."

"No it hasn't, you're a liar," Star told him, crossing her arms and pouting.

"Do... do you know each other?" Flight asked, stunned.

"Yeah, he's a big creepface," Star informed Flight even as she decided she didn't care and attacked Regglis. The agile Reggils easily avoided the strike and tried to slice Flight in two... but Flight wasn't stupid either and blocked Reggils sword before it could harm her... after two minutes fighting, Flight knew she had a hard challenge with Reggils... someone who was equal to her, maybe even surpassed her sword-skills.

"Star," she gasped at the vixen, "We gotta go..."

"Can't you hold it?" Star asked, sounding bewildered while she was blocking a strike from the other guard she fought.

"NO, Star, I mean GO!" Flight blocked a strike from Reggils, stepped aside, grabbed Star's arm and flew up, before Reggils and the other guard knew it, they were out of reach.

"Get your bow, you lazy lackey," Reggils scolded the other guard. "THEY'RE ESCAPING!"

But when the guard finally had his bow ready, Flight and Star were out of sight.

* * *

"Can I get out of bed _now?" _Bean asked Amathyst. "I'm perfectly fine."

"No, you're not... you've got a concussion, like your friend Bark,' Amathyst warned. Nevertheless, Bean tried to get out of the bed... He slowly walked to the door, head down, suffering a massive headache. But he didn't wanna let Amathyst see that, for fear she'd make him go back to bed... he hated it, and anyway, if Amathyst couldn't see he had massive pains in his head, then they didn't matter, right? Unfortunately, she saw Bean cover his forehead with his hands, walking somewhat bowed. Bean reached the door... and it seemed like it wasn't Bean lucky day... he just tried to open the door, when the door was being opened from the other side, right into his throbbing head... already weak, Bean fell over and onto the ground, almost going unconscious. Amathyst put her hand for her mouth from astonishment and disbelief.

"Amathyst... We need your help," James said, holding an unconscious Speed in his hands. The snow on his belly was colored red from the blood that drained itself into it.

* * *

Part 2: Unexpected

(Houston – USA, or where it was when it still existed...)

"Qeril!"

A green hedgehog, writing in some sort of book, looking like a diary, looked up from his previous interest and turned his ears a bit to hear better.

"QERIL!" he heard again. He laid his pen on his book, got up, for he had been lying on his sleeping bag at the time, and walked at the opening of his tent, which was closed. With one move, he zipped open the opening and stuck his head outside, looking for the one that called his name.

"Yeah?" he called back into the camp... A few hedgehogs looked his way, but paid no attention...

Qeril's eye fell on the one that called him... a black hedgehog.

"Wazzup, Fincho?" Qeril asked Fincho.

"It's your turn to relieve guard, dude."

Qeril moaned loudly. "Ah, no... not again... I hate that!"

"I don't like it either, dude, but it has to be done, dude."

"Oh, cut the overly used 'dude', Fincho," Queril rolled his eyes.

"Uh... Okay, du... whatever," Fincho shrugged at him and walked away.

"Fincho! Who's got guard duty with me?"

"Iruty," Fincho replied, disappearing around the corner of a tent.

Qeril instantly curled into the fatal position. "No," he muttered in himself. "Not Iruty... anyone but Iruty!"

Qeril stepped out of his tent, wiped some dirt out of his fur, before walking out of the camp.

"Oh, please, let him have a soar throat," he muttered to himself, walking at a few bushes, where the had to guard the camp of hedgehog-soldiers.

"Iruty?"

No-one to be seen. No wait... there, hidden in the bushes, Iruty laid... on his back, his head slightly tilted and laying under a branch. Some spittle leaked out of his mouth, an obvious clue that Iruty was unconscious or dead.

"Iruty!" Qeril gasped in amazement. He sprinted to Iruty's body. Luckily he felt a heartbeat when he laid his head on Iruty's chest... he then felt something heavy landing on his head... an enormous pain... black...

Behind him, looking down at the two unconscious persons, stood a black hedgehog, that's very familiar with us... his quills had red highlights and... Need I say more? Of course, this was Shadow.

"Coast's clear," he said, seemingly to no-one. Some rustling was heard from some other bushes near the one he was standing aside to and a few seconds later, six figures walked out... the first one was a female squirrel, or chipmunk, as it didn't have a big tail... this was Sally Acorn... behind her, a real male squirrel, with the customary long bushy tail, walked behind her. He was much younger then her, like 10 or 12 years old... his name was Smarrie the Squirrel. Behind him a female dark-gray hedgehog walked out of the bushes... she too, was not as old as Shadow and Sally and probably was 14 to 16 years old... this was Tiffani the Hedgehog. Behind her, an aqua hedgehog, again female, followed her out of the bushes... not like the two before her, she was older... an estimated 22 to 24 years old. She was named Sammy... Sammy Hawkins, a master in sneaking up on people without making any sound and that sort of thing. Behind her, a gray mink walked out of the bushes... and the first look was astonishing... Someone who saw her would stare amazed at her... and the reason was her hair, that had literally every color you can imagine in it. And so were her tail and the fur on her chest colored. Her name was Kharma the Mink. Her age could be estimated around 18 to 20 years old. The last one that came out of the bushes was a badger... he was around the age of 15 or 16 and had one blue and one brown eye... This was Michael O'Dante.

"Okay... next phase of the plan, guys," Sally said.

Moments later, Shadow, Sammy and Tiffani walked into the camp acting like hedgehog-soldiers.

"It can't be this easy to just walk into a camp full of hedgehog-soldiers," Tiffani thought. And yet it was. No-one paid attention to them... the guards that should control if they were really soldiers, where talking and paid not much attention to Shadow, Tiffani and Sammy. One of the guards seemed to recognize Tiffani and waved at her for a moment, before going on with the conversation. Tiffani looked at the guard for a moment and decided he either didn't have good eyes, didn't pay too much attention, or simply was a complete, bonafide idiot.

"Where is the power supply?" Tiffani asked her friends.

"Shh...," was all Sammy gave for an answer.

Tiffani was quiet for a moment, but then started to talk again. "I hope Big catches some good fish today... I'm very hungry."

"Would you please stop with the useless comments?" Sammy asked, in a demanding voice. Tiffani didn't answer... she knew that would make her even more mad.

"There it is," Shadow said softly, so only Tiffani and Sammy heard it. He didn't point at what he meant, but looked at it instead... a big tent, that compared with the others, looked like a giant. Shadow walked at the baby-whale sized tent, looked around suspiciously, making sure no-one saw him and went into the tent, followed by Tiffani and Sammy. Inside, they saw a big, machine-like object with metal pipes running all over it... the power supply of the camp.

"Chaos Spear," Shadow said, and the demanded object appeared in his hand. He got ready to throw the Chaos Spear in the power supply, to cause the camp to lose all electricity, when suddenly a sound behind them was heard. The three turned around, afraid to see hedgehog-soldiers with bows pointed at them. But there weren't any soldiers... no, Tiffani and Sammy saw a silver hedgehog, probably around the age of 8 to 10 years old. He had a bucket with water in his right hand with a dish-cloth laying on the surface of the water... but Shadow saw more than that... Shadow saw Silver.

* * *

Part 3: New connections

"Wake up!" The voice was heard far, far away. "WAKE UP!"

Slowly JC came back to reality. She opened her eyelids and looked up... immediately her eyes shut again... her eyelids were just too heavy to keep open. She now felt someone shaking her up... and if there's something a sleeping JC can get completely mad about, it's that.

"CUT THAT OUT!" she yelled, shooting up from her bed, opening her eyes and punching the one that woke her up, namely King.

"Ouch," King yelped, completely surprised by the sudden move JC had made. JC realized what she had just done.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry," she said, stuttering.

King felt his cheek and then shrugged. "Doesn't matter... next time, I'll just throw a bucket over your head... that'll have the same effect, but without me being slammed."

_'Of course... and where do you wanna get the water?'_ JC thought. She didn't know if King was joking or not, because she couldn't read facial expressions. The laughing from the others probably meant it was a joke. Onto this point, she hadn't felt the itching on her back... and her arms... almost every part of her body itched like crazy. She tried to reduce the itching, by scratching, but it didn't really help much. Someone, probably King, cleared his throat.

"Could you the scratching part later... we're waiting."

JC looked up at the rest and blushed.

"Oh..."

She stepped out her bed and looked at the others. "Where're we going?"

"No idea," King admitted, acting as the unofficial leader of the group. "One of those invisible dudes appeared and said we're going to be brought "somewhere" else."

"Weird," JC said.

"Whaddya expect... they're chameleons."

"Hey... that's insulting me too," André pointed out.

King sighed. "Do I really need to exclude you in every insult I make about chameleons?"

André found it useless to respond to this and stayed quiet. There came a sound from the lock and a few seconds later, the door was being opened. Again no-one was seen, but King and the group knew better then that. They were lead outside by invisible chameleons... again, they had to go into a bus... The doors were being closed like a ghost closed it. The bus drove away... not in the direction they came from yesterday, but in the opposite direction. After a sharp turn, the terrain became rougher, which could be felt by the shaking of the bus... the springs couldn't handle it and when the car finally stopped, no-one really needed morning exercises anymore. Like JC expected, they had driven further into the woods. The open place they had stopped was square-shaped... an exact square...

"I think a lot of trees had to die for this," JC said to no-one in particular.

"Who cares?" Zone asked.

"Well... I do!"

"Oh, come on... Half Mobius is forested... don't tell me, you feel sorry for the few trees that had the unfortunate fate of being chopped down..."

"One day, there'll be no tree on Mobius... and then what? We have to be glad everything grew back that fast after Dr. Eggman polluted Mobius so much," JC said defensively.

"As if it's ever going to happen that Mobius will be without trees." Zone scoffed. "That's ridiculous." He smirked for a few seconds.

"Yeah, you laugh now... one day I'll be laughing..."

"MaybAAAH…"

Zones sentence would never be finished, because a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. He jumped in the air and then ducked automatically.

"Could you _warn_ me before grabbing me by the shoulder, you creepy creatures of doom!" he snapped at the chameleon guards.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," André muttered, death-glaring at Zone.

They were all lead to a wooden barrack and pushed inside. The door closed and there they stood... in a dark barrack, with no light.

"There's... no light in here," Adaraschia said.

"You verbalized my thoughts, Ad," King said.

"It's ADARASCHIA! Adaraschia Wingit..."

"Okay, Ad," King said, teasing Adaraschia, who only death-glared back at King.

"Don't say it again, or you'll be sorry," Adaraschia warned.

King opened his mouth to tease Adaraschia even more, when a voice from the back of the barrack came.

"Uh... hello? Who is there?"

Everyone stopped with what he was doing, if they weren't doing nothing at all.

"Prisoners," King said hesitatingly. "Is there light in this wooden wanna-be shack?"

"Wanna-be shack?"

"Oh, forget it... it there light in here?"

"Uh... yes..."

"Why don't you turn it on then," Sage prompted, not getting the logic of letting the light turned of in a completely dark place.

"We wanna rest?" the voice said.

King sighed. "Could you please turn on the lights... it's not really great to talk to someone you can't see and you don't know."

A deep sigh could be heard from the back of the barrack and moments later, a fluorescent lamp was turned on and a white light enlightened five figures, laying on mattresses in the back of the barrack. The first one was a blue-white fox with deep, aqua eyes. The second, laying on the mattress next to him was a cream-colored newt. Opposite to the newt was a Iberian lynx, gray fur. The last two were hedgehogs and looked like brother and sister. They both had dark-gray fur and the girl had dark-gray hair.

"Who're you?" the fox asked... he was the one who'd talked to them all the time.

"Prisoners, as I said earlier."

"I assume your mother gave you a name..." The fox got out of his bed and walked two steps at the group.

"King... King the Tiger."

"Matt the Fox," the fox introduced himself. "The newt's called Volcano, the Iberian lynx is Sheela... Sheela Flower. And those two hedgehogs are Ace an' Rinet the Hedgehog."

"Nice ta meet ya."

"The same here."

"So... why're we here in the first place?" King asked Matt.

"Didn't they tell you?"

They all shook their heads, almost like they were holding a contest who could shake his head the best.

"Well... We have to work on some archaeological city they found... 16 hours, often more, digging in the sand, under the hot sun, when, agonizingly enough the chameleons only have to watch... and you get back pain."

"Great, just like my last construction job back home," Flash quipped.

"Great," Kronos muttered, ignoring Flash's sad attempt at humor. "The chameleon-government can always come up with a more ridiculous plan to entertain their prisoners..."

* * *

**There y'are... the new chappie...**

**"Say, you crazy author... when am I gonna appear?**

**Me: Huh? Who... Sonic!**

**Sonic: Answer my question...**

**Me: Well...**

**Knuckles: And me?**

**Sonic: It's obvious he didn't feature you in your story, Knuckles.**

**Knuckles: WhAT! You're not gonna...**

**Me: WHAT! NO! I didn't say that! You're gonna appear when it's your time...**

**Sonic: Yeah, right.**

**Me: Believe what you wanna believe, Sonic... but let me now tell the authors out there who's gonnna appear next chapter.**

**Sonic: Go ahead.**

**Me: Well... Tailsisreal, Lupus Silvae, Shadow Commando, ZehHyperactiveAuthor, Raziel777, GammaTron, NightRider94, SherryBlossom and my sister Jacomine. If you're not in here, don't worry... I may plan you later on in chappie 6. Also planned in chappie 6 are the Arctic Freedom Fighters! In chapter 7, we'll begin with Knuckles' plotline... Disclaimer: Sonic and all the others from SEGA... are from SEGA... a list of all the authors in my story is on my profile... I'm too lazy to write all those authors here... And, I can say proudly that I drew Speed... he's on DeviantArt... I'm called SpeedlionFF there... I recommend you to come on the forum for the story and chat with me or sheelaflower (we're still the only two on the forum). So... be ready for chappie six: Memories And Ideas**

**Sonic: S...**

**Me: No... I already wrote enough... you'll get your lines when I want you to...**


	6. Memories, Solutions And Surprises

**Chapter 6: Memories, Solutions And Surprises**

**

* * *

If you lose it all**

**And it just won't feel the same**

**In the fight to carry on**

**You stand and face the rain**

**And as you watch it fall**

**You learn to live again**

**It isn't all that bad**

**When you're still standing in the end**

_**Lose It All – Pillar**_

**

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE! READ THIS!**

**I'm sorry to say that I can't keep my promise and can't let anyone new appear in this chapter... But I promise you all will appear chapter 7... again, sorry... but the chapter was already too long. **

**

* * *

Part 1: A surprise!**

Part 1: A surprise!

Shadow stood there, as if he was nailed to the ground, his eyes looking at the unexpectedly appeared Silver. The most surprising of all was the age of the silver hedgehog... instead of his usual age, he was around 8. A little boy, probably not knowing anything about telekinesis at all... he just stood there, gazing at Shadow, Sammy and Tiffani, with the iron bucket with water in his hands. His eyes were locked on Shadow...as if they were trying to recognize him... but they couldn't... Silver didn't recognize Shadow...

"Silver?" Shadow said slowly, with some hesitation in his voice, not wanting to make the mistake of recognizing someone in someone you actually don't know... but the hedgehogs' reaction gave away the fact that the hedgehog, indeed, was called Silver... if possible, Silver looked even more surprised.

"H-how do you know my name?" he asked.

And although Shadow had seen this question coming immediately after he said Silver's name, he couldn't find an answer that wouldn't either be silly or confusing... in an automatic response one uses when wanting help in uncomfortable situations, he looked aside at Sammy and Tiffani, but he knew they wouldn't know an answer either. In contrary, Sammy and Tiffani were surprised, too, by the fact Shadow somehow knew the young hedgehog.

From outside, a voice cried out, "Silver! Silver!"

The voice sounded stern and angry and whoever it was, this person certainly did not have the intention of giving Silver a piece of cake... Silver turned his head around quickly and when he did so, he looked with a very scared expression on his face. The opening of the tent was opened again and a brown hedgehog stepped inside, immediately grabbing Silver by the ear and twisted it... of course, this caused pain and Silver yelped hard, while slightly ducking in a natural response...

"I said you needed to clean my tent first, you little lackey!" the hedgehog yelled in Silvers second ear. It was now that the hedgehog looked up and saw Shadow, Sammy and Tiffani, who watched this all with astonished faces.

"Who're you?" the brown hedgehog yelled at them. "What are you three doing here?"

Shadow knew that now was the time to take action. He jumped at the hedgehog, a Chaos Spear appearing in his hand. The hedgehog jumped away a second later, just in time to avoid the Chaos Spear. He drew his sword and looked angrily at Shadow... the next thing he looked at, were Sammy and Tiffani, both with a sword in their hands. And the hedgehog found that fighting three enemies at once is to much... that's suicide. And so, the hedgehog jumped back, ran to the opening of the tent, and made it out of the tent rapidly. As soon as he was outside, he began yelling and screaming that they were being invaded by the enemy. Shadow didn't want to wait till the hedgehog-soldiers came in and arrested him and swiftly made a new Chaos Spear. In one fluid motion, he threw it in the big machine that supplied the whole camp of electricity—the fact that it was day made it hard to tell if it worked, but Shadow couldn't care less one way or the other anymore—he just wanted to get away... quick. Shadow is not a coward, but he isn't stupid either, and with three men, fighting a whole army of hedgehog-soldiers is very stupid... he grabbed Silver, Sammy and Tiffani (don't ask me how he could do that with only two hands, he just did. He's Shadow, he's awesome like that) and yelled: "CHAOS CONTROL!

* * *

"What is taking them so long?" Michael muttered. "Seriously, would it kill them to hurry it up a bit? It's not like their mission was _that _hard!"

He looked around the camp from the safety of the bushes they were hidden behind. And he had made the unfortunate choice to be situated in front of a bush full of prickles... and he hated prickles... in all forms. He had stung himself at least forty times and he had scratches on his whole body, from his head to his toes. HE HATED PRICKLES! Maybe that's the reason why he doesn't like hedgehogs... Okay, Shadow, Sammy and Tiffani are really good friends, best buds even, but aside from them... He didn't want to think about this anymore.

Sally answered his comment a bit late as if she had brainstorming on how to formulate her sentence. "Shadow knows what he's doing."

She didn't even look at Michael, while talking... no, her eyes were fixed on the camp of the hedgehogs, mentioning the rumor that just started to envelop there... hedgehogs were running towards the middle of the camp...

"Could it be that they've been discovered?" Kharma verbalized the thoughts of her team-members. "Those hedgehogs don't run around for nothing... something must have happened."

"Who says that Shadow has to be discovered as soon as some hedgehogs begin running around?" Michael said. "Maybe the leader has had a heart-attack."

"CHAOS CONTROL!" was suddenly yelled. A few yelps from Smarrie and Kharma were heard as a result.

They all turned around and saw Shadow, Tiffani, Sammy and Silver.

"Hey, wait a minute... where do I know..." Sally began, trying to recognize Silver.

"It's Silver," Shadow confirmed.

"Silver! But how...!"

"Don't ask me... I have no clue."

"Dudes," Smarrie said, interrupting the two. "Let's get outta here, before we get discovered."

Everyone looked at Smarrie.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Sally commanded. "We can discuss this at our headquarters."

* * *

The headquarters of the Acorn Freedom Fighters was fairly simple and made entirely of wood. Of course, it stood in a forest... not even a few meters away from the house, a river was situated where the laziest member of the team always sat with his fishing-rod, waiting for the fish to bite in the bait. He was, as always, accompanied by his green friend Froggy, which still hadn't died and still hadn't grown a millimeter! How this could be? No-one knew... Sally thought it was because of the mystical powers of Chaos he had encountered. Smarrie believed it was because of the presence of Shadow, someone else had suggested that maybe he was some sort of robot alien... and so everyone had his own ideas. So... just like always, they sat down, staring at the float of Big's fishing-rod... not that they both were interested in fishing... yes, Big was, but Froggy wasn't. Froggy croaked now and then, jumping around the cat he always accompanied... he suddenly stopped when rustling was heard. Big seemed to hear it too, cause his ears turned to the direction he thought he heard the rustling... again, the rustling was heard and soon a Chao, looking totally exhausted and more dead then alive, flew out of the bushes. If he hadn't had skin, he'd probably be a skeleton. Big knew this Chao... but where from... his mind tried to search and finally he remembered... this was Cream's Chao, Cheese!

**

* * *

Part 2: Memories And Solutions**

"Well?" Flight questioned, standing up from her place, a solid wooden chair, located in the surgery of the underground hide-out. The reason for this movement was the person that came into the surgery, through the steel door: Amathyst! Everyone sat in the surgery and now they all looked hopeful at Amathyst.

"Well..." she began. "Miraculously, the arrow didn't hit any organs, but..."

She was interrupted by Star. "So... that means he's gonna be fine, doesn't it? I mean, organs not being hit is a good thing, isn't it? I know Speed doesn't play the organ, but it's in there for _some _reason, and if it's ok then everything's fine and we can all like happily ever after, right?"

The sad look on Amathysts face told Star she'd made her conclusion too soon.

"Well... the arrow missed the organs but hit the backbone... broke the backbone..."

"That can be fixed, can't it?" Star asked hopefully. "I mean, it's not like Speed ever used his backbone, so it should be in almost new condition and that should make it easier to fix."

"Well... the fracture itself can be fixed, but the effects will last forever..."

"What effects?" Star gulped.

"He..." Amathyst paused. This was hard for her... hard for everyone. "He can't walk for the rest of his life."

This was shocking news... really shocking news... everything in the surgery seemed to stop. Time seemed to stop... nobody moved. Mouths had fallen open. Suddenly the silence was broken by Star.

"YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!"

Amathyst looked sadly at Star. "We... we can't..."

"He fought for you all... for your leader's life! Can't you return the favor and fight for his!" Star screamed, near hysterics. "You're a doctor! Do doctor stuff!"

Star was angry... something she rarely was... she was about to burst with the emotion. But before she did, she ran out of the surgery, leaving a broken and sad Amathyst. She turned around, guilty about not able to heal Speed.

"Amathyst..." Flight said comfortingly.

She turned around.

"Don't take it too personally... if nothing can be done, nothing can be done..."

"Thanks," she said. But Flight knew that Amathyst still would take this very hard. She left the room, leaving the rest.

"I'll go after Star," Flight said after an uncomfortable pause.

"Yes... you do that," Amy agreed. "She'll need someone who understands."

Flight left the room.

* * *

'Star? You there?' Flight asked. She walked out of the hovel that hid their secret entrance to the underground headquarters. Star sat on a wooden bench that stood against the wall of the hovel. She just stared into the sky, not responding to Flight. Flight walked to the bench and sat down aside Star.

'How did you meet?' Flight asked suddenly, out of nowhere. After this question came a second. 'Are you two a couple?'

'A couple?' Star asked surprised, looking at Flight?

There were a few seconds of silence in which Star looked at Flight with big eyes. But then they wandered back into the night sky.

'No … We're not a couple... why are you asking?'

'Well... you react kinda emotional...' Flight looked down at her hands, almost ashamed to ask questions like these.

She was a good leader, but not the best in getting all personal with other people. Still, it was too bad … the two of them would definitely fit to each other … but perhaps Speed was a little young. Boys in that age aren't exactly in to that romantic thingy.

'We share a past... We know' Star almost whispered, her eyes becoming all shady.

Flight looked back into the sky.

'And when did you two meet?'

'That's quite a story...'

'I like stories... how did it begin?'

Star took a deep breath, pondering about whether she should tell Flight. She decided she would. Talking to someone would surely help.

'Y'see... Reggils is actually the person that brought us together... we know him since we went into the army. He was a player... and since there weren't too many girls in the army, he immediately added me to his "wish-list".

Star had to take another deep breath. Imagining what happened back then was already enough to get chills running down her spine.

'Back then, I was really naive... he asked me and I accepted... I thought that life in the army would get better, if I had a relationship with my commander. But it was the contrary ... He began abusing me, he sometimes beat me up... and so much more...'

Star sniffed... she tried to hold the tears. Flight looked at her with sympathy. Little girls like Star being abused like that … it was the worst. She wrapped her arm around Stars torso and pulled her towards herself. Star shifted her gaze right in front of her and leaned her against Flights shoulder. It felt nice to be comforted like that. Speed would never do anything like … he was just too dense … or too tactless … or perhaps just shy …

'And Speed got you out of this...'

Star nodded.

'Reggils said that if I left him, he would make my life even more miserable then it already was... he sometimes abused me in front of everyone in the group of soldiers he lead, he did that with more people than just me. No-one ever really cared'

Flight leaned her own head against Stars, trying to imagine what she had just told her. She felt a waterdrops on her shirt … Star was crying, even though she didn't notice it herself...But when she went on, Flight noticed that there was a big change in her voice.

'Then one day, Speed got replaced into our group... we've hardly seen each other, but everyone knew Speed as a strange guy... and sometimes, he acted really weird.'

Star sadly giggled at the memory of that. She remembered how she sometimes couldn't hold her laughter at the strange new guy and how she sometimes just wished he would disappear. Flight wasn't quite able to imagine that … Speed had always been so serious... Only Star's continuation brought the conclusion to that.

'He can hide it really good, but if you get to know him better, you'll see he's actually really childish ... Why he got replaced... I dunno. But when I got abused again in front of the group, he made a complaint about Reggils at the colonel... who replaced both of us in another group, not under the reign of Reggils anymore. But he still kept making our lives miserable. For example, a fire had "accidentally" started in both our tents one day... though our tents were not even close to each other... and it went on and on till we met Bean and his group. Before we met Bean, we had become close friends … but a couple? Me and Speed a couple … that never actually came into my mind.'

'And now, he is handicapped... for life...'

Flight's last words made Star unable to come any further... she burst into tears. Flight shifted her gaze back into the sky while Star cried into her chest. The expression on her face was so much more than just angry

_'Reggils! You're gonna pay!'_

* * *

In the headquarters itself, Bean walked to his bedroom that he had been given after he decided to stay here. He walked to the door, grabbing the door-knob, when suddenly, he heard someone call his name.

'Bean! Bean! Wait a minute!'

Bean turned around and looked in the aisle he had just walked through. He saw Amy running towards him.

'Wait!' she yelled again...

'What's up?'Bean said when Amy finally reached him.

'Oh ... It's just …I wanna talk.' Amy said, shifting her weight from one foot to another … Bean could clearly see that she was uncomfortable.

'About?'

'You'll see ...'

Bean shrugged, opened his door and walked in.

'Don't you know it's polite to let the lady go first?' Amy huffed.

'I've never been good in manners so don't sue me,' Bean said, not really caring about Amy's complaints.

Amy pouted, but followed Bean.

'So, what do you wanna talk about?' Bean asked, sitting down on his bed, while Amy sat down on a chair the wrong way.

'Well... you have changed in all those years...'

'Oh... you noticed!' Bean said sarcastically.

Amy ignored that comment and went on.

'I … just wanted to know why …'

'The war has changed me... nothing else to say.'

Amy pouted.

'Oh, come on... don't be so curtly. It's just... it's weird. Before the war, you were a crazy duck and now, you're a Freedom Fighter... and you're not crazy anymore.'

'I already said the war changed my mind!'

'Oh, don't be like this, Bean! A war just can't make people change so drastically...'

'Yes, it can! Go with it! I'm not interested in this conversation!' Bean said, really irritated.

'But I am! Your keeping a secret... multiple, I think... we're friends now... can't we be more open... It's so confusing to sit in a cell and suddenly see you, freeing us. We had forgotten you, thought you were dead, or at least a soldier. We didn't think you were still alive... and I never expected you to be a Freedom Fighter. Do you know how confusing it was... and still is... Let me understand it, Bean! What happened?'

Bean was at boiling point.

'Could you please... STOP?' Bean yelled standing up.

Amy wasn't impressed, but she also stood up.

'No... I will not... not until I have the answer.'

'You really know how to drive people up against the wall, eh? You did that with Sonic... with everyone!'

'Hey... easy with the comments... you're insulting me!' Amy pouted … again …

'I wonder why,' Bean said angry, but still sarcastic. 'Look here, Ames... we may now be allies, but that doesn't mean I will reveal my complete past to you. I don't ask you about yours either.'

'You should... I have no offense against revealing what happened in these 20 years.'

'The problem is... I do... Now, I ask you politely to leave this room, so I can be alone for a while!'

Amy looked at Bean for a while, her expression angry, but then turned and left. She slammed the door shut, leaving Bean fulfilling his wish and leaving him alone in his room. He looked at the door where Amy had just left. His expression turned into one of guilt. He bowed his head, then looked up at the ceiling.

'Forgive me...' he whispered.

He placed his two hands on his head for a few seconds and then walked to his bed, laid his head on the cushion... a few minutes later, he fell asleep.

* * *

When Amy walked back to her own bedroom, she was called by Ray.

'Ames... Have you heard? Tails is in a stable condition.'

Amy didn't look up. She just kept on marching, her face filled of anger. Who did that Bean think he was, talking to her like that? She's been a Freedom Fighter ever since she was a little kid and he … he wasn't.

'Oh... that's great.' she didn't sound too happy... and Ray noticed.

'What's the matter? You don't seem to be very happy. Is it Speed?' He asked.

'That too... but it's mainly because I had a row with Bean.'

'He didn't tell you?'

'Nope...'

It was silent for a while. Amy still had an irritated look on her face and Ray wasn't quite able to think of anything to say. But soon, the look on Amy's face changed.

'Y'know,' Amy suddenly began, walking to the door of her bedroom. 'I've been thinking...'

She stopped for a while and opened the door of her bedroom. That idea she had in mind … it was a really crazy idea. But maybe … just maybe … it might actually work.

'Yeah...' Ray said waiting for Amy to continue her sentence.

'Maybe we can heal Speed.'

'Whaddya mean... Amathyst knows far more then you about medical stuff.'

'Who says it's a medical way to heal Speed?'

'I don't get it...'

Amy took a deep breath! It was the only thing she could think of, no matter how crazy it might be. And she did have enough experience with it to know it might work. Ray on the other hand, was really anxious to hear what Amy had thought of. She was the strongest and most experienced freedom fighter here, after all.

'Maybe we can use magic on him...' Amy finally said

'Magic? But we don't know anyone who can do magic on him?'

'Yes... that's the problem...' Amy sighed.

There was a long silence. Both, Ray and Amy were lost in thoughts, so none of them were really bothered by it. Both were thinking hard about a way to heal Speed until Ray finally came up with something.

'Wait... we do know someone.' He cried.

'We do?'

'Merlin Prower, Tails' uncle.'

'Ah, no, Ray... that's no good... do you know where Merlin lives at the moment? And what if he already died?'

'Even if he died, he's still one of the Neo Walkers... together with Aurora and Athair.'

'Do you know where he lives?' Amy asked for the second time.

'No... But maybe Tails does...'

'Tails is still in coma...'

'But we can ask him if he awakes.'

'Alright, you ask him... it's not my idea.' Amy huffed, crossing her arms.

Ray had a huge smile on his face and Amy, even though she was as stubborn as always, cracked a small smile, making sure Ray didn't see it. All was not yet lost for Speed.

**

* * *

**

Part 3: The Search For A Beloved One

Mobius has changed a lot... not only because of the wars... no, the landscape has almost unrecognizably changed... and the reason are the Days of Fury that had taken place from 3143 till 3148. North America moved downwards and lost two pieces of land that were now big islands. South America had both moved to Africa and North America. Africa... the continent was broken in multiple pieces. There was not much left of that continent... Europe and Asia had gotten bigger... the continents are unrecognizably changed. A gigantic lake had formed itself in the middle of Eurasia... an extraordinary lake... In it lay a big island... and in that island was located a lake again... and in that lake were located two islands again. Downunda had changed the most... the once so solid continent had broken into 8 big islands and thousands of smaller islands. The continent that had changed the least was Antarctica... in fact, It hadn't changed one bit... it had been the only continent not yet involved in the wars... no-one had seen the use of conquering Antarctica. The natives there, the wolves and arctic foxes, who don't support the foxes in any way, had lived there for ages in clans... holding a grudge against each other. They sometimes had bloody wars and if an arctic fox and a wolf befriended each other they're both banned from their group if discovered. But besides that, they had always lived in peace. But now... as soon as the other countries came to Antarctica to take their land, peace became rare. The natives were being attacked, imprisoned and forced to work in the mines or factories. There were three ways of escaping: Being freed by another clan (This was very rare... when a clan was attacked then mostly the whole clan was imprisoned), making a plan of your own (which was almost impossible, because the prisons always were heavily guarded) and being freed by Freedom Fighters. On of the best known Freedom Fighter-groups was the Arctic Freedom Fighters, lead by Guntiver Wolf. Since the beginning of the wars, they were enlarged by Rotor Walrus, who now worked as mechanic and tactician. Our story, however, starts at the Esolit Prison, the biggest prison on Antarctica yet. It belonged to the squirrels, who were in war with both the echidnas and the chameleons on Antarctica. The Esolit Prison was situated near the border with the echidnas. And that's where our story starts.

* * *

The sun had already been in the sky for two weeks now... there were months, the sun never made place for the moon and the night. And in the bright sunlight, while it was actually night, we see a person walking... the clothes he wears are absolutely not what I would recommend for walking on the south pole. A simple t-shirt with an unhappy smiley upon it, a black leather jacket and dark blue jeans. That was all he was wearing. From his point of view, he could see the prison as a simple dot in the distance... but that was gonna change... He was making progress... he was going to reach that prison... alive or dead... that prison was the prison that had taken away the person he loved... the person he married... He couldn't let her rot away in that prison! If we look closer, we can recognize this person: Ash Mongoose... and benumbed from the cold he walked further on. It took him 16 minutes exactly to reach the prison. Well... actually hiding behind a hill of ice near the prison. He now needed to pay utter attention, to not get caught here. Guards were nowhere to be seen... but Ash knew better... The fact he couldn't see them, didn't mean they weren't there... they just hadn't noticed him yet. The prison looked like it couldn't be taken over... it looked like even a nuclear bomb couldn't even scratch the thing. How on Mobius was he supposed to get in! Oh, he wished it was completely dark right now... but he wasn't going to give up at this point... he was never going to give up... But he couldn't think of something... as if his brain was frozen... Maybe it was... no, he was imagining things...

"Come on, Ash... Don't stray off," he chastised himself.

But he couldn't find any solution. He stood there another 10 minutes, before the solution found him, instead of the other way around.

Ash still stood there, becoming colder and colder, when suddenly, a feminine voice said, "Who're you?"

Ash turned around, convinced he was discovered and now had to fight for his and Mina's life... But he didn't see anyone. He turned his head again, in every direction, but he saw nobody... Only snow and ice... and a prison.

"Who's there!" he said, trying to sound angry. Anyone could hear he was afraid.

"Don't be afraid... I'm not going to harm you... I'm one of the good guys."

That made Ash feel a little better about what was happening. But the fact he still couldn't see with he was talking... it still was suspicious.

"Show yourself then."

As if he expected the person he was talking to, would appear immediately. No success.

"Hmm... not now... tell me: who're you?"

"I am Ash Mongoose."

"I've heard that name before."

"Probably... I told you who I am... now show yourself!"

Out of nowhere and not even two meters before him, an ermine suddenly appeared... which scared the heck out of Ash. He gave a yelp from the surprise and jumped back.

"So you are an enemy! A squirrel!"

"No! I'm not a squirrel... Squirrels can't make themselves invisible."

Ash hadn't thought about that yet. "Then what and who are you?"

"Me? I'm Erma the Ermine."

Ash looked confused.

"But what are you doing here?"

"Me... I'm a Freedom Fighter. I work undercover there." She pointed at the prison.

"You work undercover there?" Ash finally saw a way to get in. "You have to get me in there!"

"WHAT? You want to break _into _prison? Are you totally nuts?"

"No... My wife's in there!"

"How do you know?"

"They captured her!" Ash answered furiously.

"You sure about that?" Erma asked.

"Well..." he said thinking. "We accidentally ended up in a fight between squirrels and echidnas... one of the two must've taken her prisoner."

"You really sure they sent her to prisons on Antarctica? Maybe she was killed after being captured?"

"No... I asked both an echidna and a squirrel who were already dying, where the prisoners were headed for. They both said that prisoners would be in the prisons in Antarctica."

"Hmm..." was Erma's short answer. She turned to Ash, with an anxious expression. "You really sure you wanna go in there? It's not the nicest place, y'know."

"Of course I'm sure," Ash said, loosing his patience. "I can't let Mina rot away in some prison!"

"Okay... not my choice... wait here, I'll be right back."

Erma vanished in thin air, before Ash could react.

"I really don't feel safe," Ash said quietly to himself. "Maybe she's now warning the guards."

Ash got more worried by the minute, and by the time Erma appeared, he had lost most of his patience.

"Finally... where've you been?"

"I'll tell you later... we have to hurry!" she said, ignoring Ash's words and grabbing his arm. Before he knew it, he stood before one of the gates of the prison.

"Carla! It's me! Erma!" Erma said to the door.

"Password! 5!" a feminine voice came from the other side of the door.

"4," Erma answered.

"Alright."

A creaking sound was heard when the door opened... and not just a little bit... the creaking could even manage to wake up a deaf man!

"I now know they're not keeping this prison in repair," Ash said.

The door slowly opened... until there was a narrow opening, big enough to let a person in.

"Why're ya comin' back?" Carla asked.

"This dude here's looking for his wife..."

"Oh... how're ya gonna find her?"

"Well... don't they note every prisoner in a list or something?"

"Oh, yeah, yer right." Carla said.

"Do you have any idea where they could possibly keep that list?"

"Well... I dunno for sure, but I think the governor keeps that list in his own office."

"Hmm... thanks."

Erma grabbed Ash by the arm again and said:

"You act like my prisoner... or we'll be discovered!"

"Sure..." Ash muttered. _'Why am I trusting her? She can betray me just like that!'_ he thought, looking over to where Erma walked, her eyes looking straight forward. Ash looked to the ground. So much had changed since the wars...

They walked a few meters before seeing a few small flats, each probably had 10 storeys.

"These are flats... what are we doing here?"

"These flats are the residence of the guards and other important people in this prison.' She stopped and pointed at a flat. 'That one is the flat where the important live... In the penthouse of that flat, the governer lives."

"So, that's up top... that's where that list is, right?"

"Yup..."

They walked at the flat, Erma pointed at... they didn't know they were about to go through one of the most weird fights they would ever fight.

**Authors' Note (READ IT FOR ONCE!):**

**That's chappie 6... the longest one till now, I think. Sorry for letting you wait so long, but school keeps me really busy... Next time a whole bunch of new OC's will appear. Ash, Erma, Tails and all the other SEGA characters are SEGA's (how obvious). In my profile is a list with all the people who joined the story... don't use them without asking!**

**FOR ALL MY REVIEWERS!**

**I'm really glad you review, and I'm totally happy with all your positive reactions, but could you give me at least one point of criticism what could make the story better... even grammar/spell errors are welcome... Thank you...**

**Special thanks go to Sheelaflower, who helped me with every storyline. Another thanks goes to StarVix... and everyone that has joined the story! **

**If you don't know it... I have a forum about this story... you're welcome anytime!**


	7. Awakening

**Here we are now with the falling sky in the rain,**

**We're awakening**

**Here we are now with our desperate youth and the pain,**

**We're awakening**

**Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talking in your sleep**

**About a dream, we're awakening.**

_**Awakening – Switchfoot**_

**Chapter 7: Awakening**

* * *

Part 1: The Three Experiments

(Location: What used to be South-East Asia)

Everywhere around Mobius were Freedom Fighters... even if we move to South-East Asia, away from South -and North America... there were Freedom Fighters... the best known of all Freedom Fighters groups was lead by Knuckles the Echidna. In his team were some unexpected people... of course, Julie-Su the Echidna, Knuckles' wife, was part of the team, as was Lara-Su, their daughter. Other echidnas who joined the team were Brendon and Quinzillie. The unexpected members were two, or actually three, foxes... the first was Fiona Fox, a former member of the Knothole Freedom Fighters... she betrayed them and became a villain. She isn't one anymore, obviously. The second fox had a similar past... his name was Miles Prower... the Anti-Tails. Fiona and Miles had married and had gotten a son called Yurio Prower. This team had been the thorn in the side of both the echidnas and the humans, by sabotaging their plans and invading their buildings. And with such a mission, our next storyline starts:

"There it is," Knuckles said, looking at a huge building. The front of the building showed 'Artyr Laboratory' in such big letters, even a blind person could not miss it. Under those two words stood 'Scientific research for living weapons'.

"This is disgusting," Brendon said, when he read that sentence, that could probably be some kind of slogan for the company.

"You can say that... they do experiments on real humans there, to create the ultimate weapon...," Miles began

"...Which is useless, stupid, and pointless, since Shadow has already been created." Knuckles finished the sentence.

"Ah, humans... totally crazy," Quinzillie commented. "You could expect something like this from them."

"Maybe crazy, but also crapping annoying when it comes to fighting," Knuckles said.

"Er... let's hurry, Knux," Brendon said.

"Eh yeah... Let's find a way in."

He brought his wrist to his mouth where a watch was located.

"Dimitri, could you scan the building for any ways in, preferably one where we are not killed instantly?" Knuckles said to the watch.

"Yes," the watch said back. "But the data-files I have are pretty old."

"Scan them... something is always better then nothing," Knux commanded.

Miles moved his head to Knuckles' and said:

"Knux... they rebuilt this building partially..."

"I'm aware of that, Miles." Knuckles said to Miles, while staring at the building.

"Scan complete, Knux..."

"Tell me the possibilities." Knuckles demanded.

"Well... the best possibility I can see are the roof-windows... Since you and Miles can fly, you can fly up to the roof and enter the building via the roof-windows..."

"Any other possibilities?"

"Not that I can see... at least... no possibilities where you can go in without being seen and killed dead." Dimitri said.

"Then, we'll take the roof. Knuckles over and out."

He broke the contact and turned to Quinzillie, Brendon and Miles.

"You heard it... the roof."

Knuckles grabbed Quinzillie's arm and flew up... when looked at Miles, he saw him twirling his tails, while holding Brendon.

"We gotta fly quite high... they'll see us otherwise," Knuckles said, almost flying vertically.

"Ehh... Knux?" Quinzillie said.

"Yeah?"

"Look at the roof."

Knuckles, who had been looking up in the air till that moment, turned his head at the roof. "What's wrong with the... roof…"

When he reached the final word of that sentence, he saw what exactly was the problem: no windows.

"Oh, why did they have to replace the windows on the roof?" Knuckles muttered. He flew high enough and began flying less vertically. After a few minutes they reached the roof. With a smooth landing the four of them stood on the roof of the laboratory. "Does anyone see a way in?"

The building quite gigantic, so they began looking around the roof.

"Knux!" Miles' faint voice was heard after ten minutes. "I found something here!"

As fast as they could, Brendon, Quinzillie and Knuckles ran towards Miles who stood by a grating.

"Here... this is what I found. What its nailed to the roof, so we can't take it of."

"We may not be able to take it off, but I have a way to take it down," Knuckles said, looking at his two sharp knuckles. He looked at the grating. With a quick move, he jumped at the grating with a scream and punched the whole grating to smithereens, if it's even possible to punch an iron grating to smithereens. But at least, they finally found a way in. Knuckles looked down, but saw nothing else then a grey, metal floor. No voices were heard, no alarm could be heard... the coast was clear. Knuckles jumped down, Knuckles ready to punch any unexpected enemies... no-one. The only thing he saw was a gangway, where he stood in.

"No-one's here... you can come down, guys," Knuckles said, half-whispering to his teammates. Not a second later, Miles landed on the floor, which gave a metal-like noise. He was followed by Quinzillie and Brendon.

"Where are we?" Brendon verbalized everyone's thoughts.

"A laboratory. Yeah... if I hadn't been here, you'd never known."

"Oh, Quin... Don't start again with your corny comments." Brendon said.

But it was too late... if Quinzillie was corny, only sleep or something really serious could get him out of that corny state.

"Corny? Me? You gotta be kidding me?"

"QUIN! SHUT UP!" Brendon yelled.

"Oooh... is that a threat?" his buddy said with a happy face.

"Can you please... stop?" Brendon pleaded.

"Uhm... I'll answer that question tomorrow."

"Knuckles... bring him back, please... he's gone nuts again."

"You know I can't bring him out of that corny state."

"See...?" Quinzillie said.

Brendon growled but did Quinzillie no harm... not yet. He walked further on... Quinzillie was silent now, but that didn't mean he wasn't corny anymore... he just waited for a good opportunity to start again. The gangway had almost no doors... they hadn't seen one at least. But after ten minutes they saw one.

"Ah, finally... so this building really exists out of something more then just aisles," Miles said.

As expected Quinzillie just couldn't resist to make a comment.

"Oh, but I knew it all along that there was a door here... I just wanted to test your searching skills. You didn't pass... you were far too slow."

The other three death-glared at Quinzillie for a moment, every one of them making their own plans how to let him shut up.

"Quin," Brendon began with restrained anger. "You're not funny anymore... you can shut up!"

"Oh, but I wasn't trying to be funny," Quinzillie said, smiling. "I was speaking the truth."

Brendon turned at Knuckles.

"Knux... please let me slam him!"

"When we're back home... we still need him for this mission."

Brendon smiled and glared behind him where Quinzillie's face had slightly changed... he now laughed sheepishly.

"You... you know I was just toying with you, eh?"

"Yeah... well, I always toy three times ruder... let me toy with you when we're back in the headquarters..."

"You can't do that."

Knuckles, who till now, had been quite calm, suddenly punched his fist against the wall and screamed, "COULD YOU TWO STOP WHINING?"

The building seemed to shake under the enormous yell from Knuckles. Even a complete army would completely freak out.

"Knux... could you yell a little harder? There's a deaf little old lady who didn't hear you over on the other hemisphere." Quinzillie commented.

"Brendon... if he says one more thing you can slam him. I take no responsibility."

"Oh, but I would love to take the responsibility."

Quinzillie understood that even the slightest word would cause him enormous harm.

"Aw... just as I have permission, he doesn't say anything more!"

"Bren... I was talking to you too."

"Hey, guys... we've now been standing for 15 minutes in front of this door... isn't it time to actually do something?" suggested the calm Miles.

''Uh, yes, let's go inside."

"At least, we know there's no-one inside the room," Miles stated as they entered and looked around.

"If there was something in the room, he's now deaf... my ears are still singing," Brendon commented.

Knuckles opened the door and set foot in the dark space that was behind the door. The other two followed. After some searching, Knuckles found a switch and turned on the lights. What they now saw was stunning, astonishing... Three big capsules stood in the middle of the room... each one of them contained an experiment. The first two were foxes with three tails. The third capsule contained a human with wolf-like ears and a wolf-like tail. Aside from that, she looked like a human.

"This is..." An astonished Quinzillie began.

**

* * *

Part 2: Tails Awakens**

"Yeah?"' Flight said. "What did you need me for, Noah?"

Flight walked through the steel door and came into a small room where James and Noah already were...

"A conversation, concerning Emney Näslund and the Kit-Kats in Cyrola City."

"Cyrola City?"

"You don't remember? A new K-K Freedom Fighter group has started there..."

"Oh, wait... I remember... Black the Fox was the name of the leader, right?"

"Yup..." Noah answered. "The others are named Lucy the Hedgehog, S.T. Hedgehog, Sherry the Hedgehog, Quote the Raven and Theodore the Tiger."

"Yeah, yeah... I remember... what's wrong with them?"

"Well... nothing... they asked us a favor..."

"What exactly?"

"Well... in about three days, an escort with the most dangerous prisoners from the Blebji Prison in Leonecke City comes goes to Cyrola City... they stop in Vulpes City for refueling and a few other things..."

"So... what's their plan... and how do they want to involve is in it?"

"Well... they heard we were very busy so they asked a minor task: obtaining information about the escort like the exact amount of prisoners, how much guards there are and other information like that... they need it, because they want to assault it."

"Aha, okay... Well, we let Taylor, Mar and Matthew look at that..."

"Okay..."

"And the second thing? The thing about Emney."

"Well... we don't know how long Emney has been traitorous... he may have told the enemy our location..."

"Nah... they would've raided us as soon as they know where we are."

"Yeah, okay, but that was not our point... my point is that Emney has given a lot of information to Reggils... he knows every inch of our personal history. He knows what's going on here. And maybe we have more of those traitors in our midst... who knows... everyone can be a traitor."

"You saying my friends are traitors, Noah?" Flight said, a little ticked of by Noah's distrust.

"No, I said that they could be a traitor. You hadn't expected Emney to betray us, either. We need to tell everyone to be alerted for suspicious things."

Flight sighed. "You are right..."

She was suddenly interrupted by two hasty knocks on the door... the door opened and Amathyst stood there.

"Tails has awakened..."

"That's great... we'll come as quickly as possible."

Amathyst closed the door and Flight turned to Noah and James.

"Are we ready?"

"We are..."

"Good... I wanna see Tails again."

They stood up and walked out of the room.

* * *

That evening...

The door of Tails room opened. Amy and Ray stepped slowly inside looking at Tails, who seemed to sleep now... after being welcomed back in the world by everybody, Amathyst had insisted to get him some sleep.

"You sure we need to do this?" Amy asked Ray. "Why can't we let him just asleep?"

"It doesn't matter, really," Tails answered, apparently already awake.

Amy and Ray looked at the bed where Tails tried to sit right up.

"Did we wake you, Tails?"

Tails shook his head. "No... I'm fine... I was already awake... What is it that brings you here?"

"Well... we have something we want to ask you."

"You can say it."

"Do you know where your uncle Merlin lives at the moment?" Ray asked.

Tails was silent for a few seconds. He looked down, thinking. After two minutes he looked at Amy and Ray.

"I don't know for sure, guys... I think he lived in South America... the last time he had written me a letter, he said he'd arrived in some mystical ruins... that wasn't even so long ago. He said that the ruins have been used by the humans long ago... after that the Mysterious Cat People have used it for magical reasons... Therefore, some objects that are found there have very magical powers... especially rings. I don't know more... why are you asking?"

"You heard what happened to Speed?"

"Speed? Who is Speed?"

"Don't you know Speed?" Ray blurted out, sounding stunned. Then he thought about it and realized that Tails never could have known who Speed was; he hadn't yet been able to meet him.

"It's one of the foxes that freed you. A lot has happened, while you were unconscious."

Ray began telling Tails everything.

"That's quite a shocking story," Tails said, astonished by what happened while he was unconscious.

"It certainly is," Amy agreed.

Ray turned to Amy. "Shall we tell Flight about this?"

"You'd better tell her" Tails said. "Every idea is worth trying."

Ray and Amy happily nodded when they heard Tails agree and left the room...

* * *

Later that evening, he got company again... but this time, it was Nack. Just like Amy and Ray he stepped inside, considered if he really should do this when Tails said:  
"I'm awake."

Nack looked surprised for a second but regained the control of his facial expressions really fast. "Oh... how're you doing now?"

"I'm doing fine..."

There was an awkward silence for a moment when Tails suddenly began. "You changed a lot since the wars."

"Yeah... I'm now one of the good guys..."

"If I'm allowed to ask... what changed you?"

"Well... that's a long story... but Bean's the main reason I'm on the good side now."

"Oh, really... Bean changed a lot too... he doesn't act crazy anymore... it really is weird."

"Yeah... but I don't think Bean likes it, if I tell you..."

"If he doesn't mind, I'll ask him myself."

"I doubt he ever wants to tell any of you."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Nah... the whole story displays him as the hero, but he just doesn't want to think about the past."

"I see... I'll try to get something out of him..."

"You've grown too," Nack now said. "So've your friends."

"Especially Ray... he's done some really important things that saved numerous lives."

"We all did... it's just the way he acts, the way you all act."

"Nah... we didn't change much mentally. It's just that every time you encountered us, you were an enemy... you only knew we were a bunch of stupid annoying kids. You're now a Freedom Fighters yourself... you look differently at things."

"Ah... that could be it..."

The door opened and Amathyst stepped in. "Tails... you really have to rest some more..."

Tails sighed. "Well, Nack... see ya tomorrow then."

"Yup," Nack said. He nodded and left the room.

**

* * *

Part 3: A Fight With Weird Weapons**

"Ping" it sounded through the elevator from one of the flats, standing in the Esolit Prison. It was the flat where the most important people of the prison lived... one of those people, being the governor of that prison, Juquido Axirinov. This was a very weird name for humans, but a very common name for squirrels. He lived on top of the flat, in a penthouse... and that was where the two people in the elevator were headed too... And those people were: Ash Mongoose and Erma the Ermine. They both watched the door of the elevator open... with one or two steps, they stepped out of the elevator... with almost no sound the elevator closed again. They were now standing in a hall... Ash walked to the door before him, probably the front door... Erma first pushed on the button of the elevator, so it would go back to the first floor...

"Ehm, Erma," Ash said, whispering for some reason.

Erma turned around and looked at Ash. "Yeah... what's the matter?"

"The door... it's open..."

"It was... open? Then there must be someone in his room... and since the governor is not here at the moment..." She took her time to think.

"Ash... prepare for some unexpected things to come... I think we're not the only intruders here."

Ash wondered who these possible intruders could be... Erma walked over to the door and slowly pushed it open. Nothing could be heard... no wait... did Ash hear footsteps?

"You heard that?" Erma asked. "There's someone here."

So... Ash had heard it; good... Erma probably had better ears...

"Whoever those guys are, they really spoil the game,"Erma whispered. "Can you fight?"

"I've learned it in those 20 years... I can defend myself pretty well."

"Good, cause you'll probably need everything you know about fighting... I think those guys are Echidna-spies, who look for anything useful here... I wonder how they managed to get in here."

Still standing for the opened front door, Erma walked in, followed by Ash.

"Okay... you go through that door and I'll take that one..."

"Understood."

With that, they departed, both of them going to different rooms.

Ash slowly pushed the door open... he looked around the room through the narrow opening he'd made... no-one... it was a small room with only some furniture in it.

_'They could've hidden themselves behind the door,' _Ash thought.

He suddenly pushed the door open till it hit the wall... or what was substituted for the wall... a yell came from behind the door and Ash knew immediately his thought was right... He stepped in... and immediately got slammed in his head. He fell sideward and landed with a hard sound on the floor.

_'How...'_

His eyes had closed for a few seconds and when he opened them again, he knew the answer... two echidnas. And even though he had mist before his eyes he could distinguish a sword in the hand of the echidna that slammed him to the ground... He didn't want to die already and rolled aside a few seconds later and he'd been dead. He stood up as soon as possible and ducked for another strike of the echidna. He was defenseless against swords, and soon, he would get killed... he turned around and ran to another door, followed by the two echidnas. He opened the door, like he had never opened a door and stepped into the next room... the bedroom...

"Come here, you stupid mongoose!" one of the echidnas said furiously.

But that wasn't really Ash's intention... instead he ducked for yet another strike of the echidna. Unfortunately for the echidna, he swung his sword against a window, that looked out to the east side of the prison... the pain caused the echidna to let go the sword, which now fell down ten stories before landing on the ground. The purple hand of the echidna had some bloody scratches and the blood made the injuries look worse then they were. Now, Ash had a better chance of staying alive and the first thing he did, was getting right up again, and stomping his fist with all his power in the belly of the echidna... which had a pretty good effect. They echidna probably turned green, then blue, then purple, then red, before returning to purple again... he bowed, holding his hands on his belly, gasping for air... one down... for a while. Ash jumped on the bed and then jumped at the other echidna, which didn't own any sword. With a yell, they both fell to the ground. After rolling over the ground they hit the legs from a very unstable table, which now fell over them with everything that had been upon the table... and this was where the madness started... it seemed the governor was apparently very fond of painting, cause a few tubes paint came falling down on the two wrestling men. While fighting, Ash managed to get his hands on a few opened tubes, which he happily emptied above the face of the echidna The echidna was trying to not let the paint get in his mouth or eyes, which decreased his concentration... this wrestling was stopped, when the other echidna, who had recovered, pulled Ash from his friend and threw him through the room... he landed against a wardrobe and because of the power that the echidna used, Ash broke the door and fell in the wardrobe... which was, obviously, filled with clothes. When trying to get up, he noticed there were coat-hangers on the bottom of the wardrobe, which he grabbed and threw at the unaware echidnas... next were the clothes themselves, with which Ash jumped at the echidnas... the unlucky souls... they got at least ten kilos of clothes over their heads and both fell to the ground, while trying to free themselves from those clothes. Standing up, still disorientated, Ash grabbed one of them and threw him against a bookcase, which wavered for a moment, but then fell over the echidna. He got delved by more books he would ever read in his entire life. The other echidna, the colored one, which we'll call Painthead to avoid confusion, recovered and now grabbed Ash by his clothes and threw him against a pedestal cupboard, with a lamp on it. Immediately, the lamb fell onto the ground and since it was partially made of ceramics, it fell into a thousand shards... Ash had a few serious cuts on his body by now and it didn't matter which of the three you would take, all three could not walk through a city, without being reported at the police at least 15 times in 5 minutes. Ash decided they should move on to the next room and ran to another door opened it and with that move, the fight would even get weirder. It seemed they now were in the study-room... the room they left behind would undoubtedly get the first prize of a chaotic-room contest. They were about to bring chaos in the second... in the study-room, there was a huge amount of electronic equipment... the first where Ash could get his hands on was the monitor of a computer. He jumped on the desk, raised the thing and bombarded the other echidna, which we call "Bookworm" for now, with it... the unfortunate echidna, was able to avoid the thing... almost... with a enormous "BANG" it fell on the feet of the echidna breaking multiple bones. He was silent for one second and then let out a shriek the likes of which Ash had never heard before. He fell to the ground crying like a little kid.

Painthead ran to the desk, grabbed the bottom of the desk and flipped it over with all his strength. This time, it was Ash that was being buried by things... he was lucky not getting anything on his head. Ash tried to recover and while doing so, he grabbed a keyboard and jumped at Painthead to hit him... he succeeded in that. Painthead was slammed to the ground, but stood up in no-time. Painthead saw in the corners of his eyes his next weapon: a jar with a big, long cactus in it. With two steps he reached it and grabbed it... Ash's eyes got considerably bigger when he saw Painthead swinging the cactus to his head. The prickles made a thousand scratches. The next strike could not be avoided too and made a bloody mess of Ash's face... and although the cuts weren't really deep and not severe, the amount of blood made it look like he was heavily injured. Ash jumped away and ran to the corner of the room, where he grabbed a bin.

Painthead followed him with his cactus, but realized too late what exactly Ash was about to do with the bin. Ash lifted the bin up, turned around and threw everything that was in the bin at Painthead's head... the most squalid mess was poured over Painthead and the paint on his head, made some of those things stick to his head, which made a hilarious sight. If Ash hadn't been fighting he'd been laughing so hard that he could even surpass the sound Bookworm was making. The jar with the cactus fell on the ground, when Painthead let it fall to the ground because Ash's sudden attack. Ash now had a chance to finally slam the echidna... but couldn't find anything to slam with. Instead he slammed Painthead with his bear hands to the ground... but Painthead was far from unconscious and ran yet in another room. By the way, if Painthead hadn't been disorientated, he would have fled through the door he and his mate came... but instead he went into the bathroom.

Why the governor had placed the bathroom in such a weird place in the house, was none of his concern, but it made the fight get even weirder. When Painthead saw he was in the wrong room, he was too late. Ash slammed the door shut and punched Painthead against the head. Painthead fell forward against a basket full with dirty clothes, which were immediately given a new color, because of the paint that Painthead had on his head. Ash grabbed the iron toilet-brush and tried to strike Painthead, but this time Painthead had recovered himself quick enough to avoid the attack easily and give Ash a punch. Ash landed on the wash-hand stand and flung a few things with that movement on the ground... A second later Ash fell from the wash-hand stand on the ground, between those things... the first thing he felt, he used to throw at Painthead... it was glass pot with gel. Ash hadn't aimed precisely at Painthead and instead of finding the echidna, it found the wall... the pieces glass flew around and some of them made some really nasty wounds... The next thing, Ash found was deodorant... Ash immediately stood up and sprayed at Painthead who now desperately tried to turn his head away, so the deodorant couldn't hurt his eyes. With this turn he saw the shower and a evil plan came into his mind. He jumped at the shower, turned it on full power and then set the hot water on full... the steaming hot water sprayed on his enemy and Ash now tried to desperately get out of Painthead's shower range. While trying to find an idea to stop this torture, he grabbed the mirror and jumped at Painthead, slamming the big mirror into pieces on Painthead's head. The showerhead fell out of his hands and Painthead fell unconscious on the floor.

"Uhm...'" a voice came from the door. Ash automatically looked at the door, expecting yet another echidna. Instead, it was Erma. '"You done here? Whoa."

When Ash looked at Erma, she saw the multiple cuts on his face from the cactus.

"What?" Ash asked, not knowing how awful he looked like.

"You seen yourself?"

"I just broke the mirror," Ash answered, a small amount of sarcasm in his voice. Erma came in and looked at the scenario... the shower was still on, spraying against the wall...

"What happened to him?" Erma asked.

"Too much to tell... you got the list?"

"Yes... but she's not here."

"She's not here? All this fighting... for nothing?"

Erma wanted to answer, but yet another voice, this time coming from the bedroom, gave a yell...

"'That's the governor! Where are we gonna hide?"

"What do you think of punching him unconscious too?'"

_'He'll go unconscious as soon as he sees you, my friend,' _Erma thought...

Ash sped off to the bedroom... too late, Erma realized this...

"Crap!" she said, before turning invisible.

Meanwhile, Juquido had discovered the total mess that had once been his bedroom.

"What evil on Mobius has happened here?" he yelled. He walked into the study-room and found an echidna there, gone unconscious from the pain... he didn't had the time to check the complete room as the bathroom door opened and Ash ran towards him, charging with his two fists... before Juquido knew it, he had two fists in his face, falling backwards.

"Whoa," Ash said teasingly, and a bit over-confident, "You must be very weak to go down after two punches."

He bowed at Juquido and looked him in his face...

"No, you had surprised me, that's all."

"Whaddya m..."

How, Ash didn't know, but the next second, he was thrown through yet another door... which appeared to be the kitchen. Juquido jumped at him, but Ash opened the door of the refrigerator and instead of jumping on Ash, Juquido hit the door on full power... Ash looked in the refrigerator and saw... a ready-made chicken... he grabbed the thing and just as Juquido stood up again, Ash closed the refrigerator door, laughed with a big grin and said in a happy tone:

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

With that nice sentiment, he slammed Juquido with his own chicken... a sound similar to that from a chicken being slammed on a person, how obvious, was heard and gave the scene a strange effect. Juquido wavered for two or three seconds and then fell backwards as if the scene was played in slow motion. As soon as he reached the ground, he stood up again... And suddenly fell down again... Erma appeared, grabbed Ash and ran away.

"Hey!" Juquido screamed angrily. "Come here... I'm not done with you two yet!"

He stood for the second time and chased them... Of course, Erma was now headed for the exit via the living room... but to their surprise, the door to the hall was guarded... behind them, Juquido walked at them.

"You didn't think I'm that so stupid as to fight without warning my guards first! Surrender... you have nowhere to go."

Erma looked around. Indeed, there were no other doors... only a bookcase, a table, a window... a window!

"HOLD ON!" Erma yelled at Ash, while running at the window.

"WHANOOOO!" Ash said in death agony when he saw what exactly Erma was doing... A moment later, the room was filled with the noise of breaking glass and a screaming Ash. They fell down four stories... two? Yes, four. Cause two storiess down was a balcony. Before Ash had the time to recover himself again, Erma jumped again, now six stories. Humans would not have survived the fall, but Mobians could although it caused a lot of pain. Erma looked around and saw a group of prisoners, guarded by three squirrels, who were about to be imprisoned all of them were looking astonished by Ash and Erma who fell down from the sky. The names of the prisoners? Tori "Wolf" Silver, Mark the Wolf, Katie the Wolf, Victor Steel, Rico Burner, Breeze the Wolf, Jason the Fox and Zjacco the Fox.

**OH NO! EVERY FAN OF MY STORIES WILL NOT BE HAPPY TO READ THIS!**

**My parents have decided I should stop writing again, till I have good marks again... which means I can't update the story for at least a month! I asked Sheelaflower if she could continue the story and she happily accepted, but now, her notebook broke... she can't write! Please! I need someone to continue the story in my absence... everyone who thinks he can write and is okay with taking over the story for a while, can continue the story... If someone wants to continue it temporarily, contact me for further details.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own Tails and any other SEGA-characters. They belong to SEGA... Aside from Speed, Smarrie, Zjacco, Painthead, Bookworm and Juquido, I don't own any of the characters... there's a list on my profile of all the authors that joined... that should do the rest of the disclaimer.**

**Thanks:**

**Thanks go to Sheelaflower and StarVix for beta-reading the story... and I wanna thank all of the authors that joined the story. And of course, thanks to all my reviewers!**

**I have a forum... you're always welcome there... And sorry for you guys that appear in the Arctic storyline... I couldn't give you a more active role in this chapter... next chapter, you all will have action!**


	8. Heading South

**Heading South**

**Leaving Vulpes City**

A soft, chilly wind blew through the slums of Vulpes City. The snow-squall that had brought tons and tons of snow earlier that day had passed. The sky was still filled with clouds, floating on the wind to a still unknown destiny. It was quite late already and with the cold snow outside, practically everyone was sitting inside now, sitting in front of the fireplace. Obviously today the thing to do was play cards with friends or family or whatever else there was to do inside. The only ones outside were probably members of gangs, guarding their own territory... the slums were a dangerous place if you didn't know where you can and can't go.

Despite all of this, the cold weather, the danger in the slums, and the late time, Flight had decided to take a walk. As she walked on through the snow, she was lost in thoughts, thinking about the events that had happened the past few days. Emney's betrayal had come as a shock to her. What was his reason? Had he been on the government's side from the very beginning? Questions like these flew around in her head. Trying to get an answer had only given her headaches until now. Why had she never noticed that Emney was a traitor... could she have noticed it?

She walked past a few shady figures, who looked at her untrustingly. They did nothing, however, and let her walk on. A gunshot rang far away. Hearing a gunshot was almost as normal as hearing a bird chirp. It wasn't abnormal here. Stepping into the slums is taking a step closer to the underworld. After walking on a few more meters, she decided to return to the headquarters.

It took her fifteen minutes to return to her home, from where she had resisted the current government from a young age. Before she could reach the door, it was thrown open and Amy rushed outside, nearly ramming right into her.

"Hey, Flight... where've you been?"

"Took a walk..."

"In this cold?" Amy said, slightly surprised.

"I've got fur for a reason, though I do have to admit it's chilly," Flight replied, while looking up in the air, purposely avoiding Amy's gaze.

"Come on inside. I have to ask you something... or rather, suggest..." Amy requested.

"Oh?" Flight replied, curious for what Amy had in mind.

Amy walked back inside and Flight followed her and closed the door.

"Is everyone else here?" Flight asked, feeling in her left pocket before she pulled out a Kit-Kat Chunky. Amy nodded.

"So... where did you want to talk about?" Flight asked.

"It's about Speed... we might have a way to cure him," Amy replied.

Flight froze in shock. The Kit-Kat was inches away from her mouth, still awaiting the first bite. Flight stared at Amy, amazement clouding her features.

"What did you say? You know how to cure him?" she asked, not believing her own ears.

"Well... I am certainly not sure if it will work, but there's chance that magic could do the trick."

"Aaaah, magic," Flight said. The amazed expression disappeared from her face and she bit the Kit-Kat in half. "I thought about that too, y'know... but where would you get magic from?"

"Tails has an uncle and he..."

"...is part of the Neo Walkers," Flight finished the sentence, much to Amy's surprise, "Amy, you're brilliant... let's go!" She was about to walk to the secret entrance when she stopped halfway and turned around.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Well... that's the problem... somewhere in Soumerca," Amy said, scratching the back of her head.

Flight blinked for a few seconds and then blurted out, "Soumerca? Y'mean, that big continent?"

Amy nodded.

"Are there anymore details?" Flight asked.

"The last time he wrote Tails he said he was near some Mystical Ruins," Amy answered.

Flight was silent for two seconds and then lowered her head and looked down to the ground, while her hair fell forwards over her face. A sigh escaped her mouth and she moaned, "Why do solutions always need big search operations?" Walking though the secret entrance she added, "I'll find some volunteers."

The next day, Amy, Tails, who insisted he didn't need to stay in bed anymore, Ray, Bean, Noah, Star, Mar, Taylor and Glass were preparing for the journey to Soumerca. Flight decided they needed her to stay here the most and had given Noah leadership over the group. They had a long way to go before they'd reach Soumerca alone. And this journey wouldn't go as calmly and easily as everyone wished it to...

**Part 2: Enemies Turn Into Friends**

Erma and Ash didn't land very comfortably. Erma just managed to land on her feet, but it caused a lot of pain. Ash was even less lucky and landed face first into the thick layer of snow that covered the entire continent. It was certainly something you wouldn't see falling from the sky everyday, so everybody near, including some soldiers escorting a few prisoners towards the prison, stood still and looked stunned at Ash and Erma for a moment, which gave the two a second to regain complete awareness of where they were. But it didn't last longer than that. From above, Juquido Axirinov yelled some words like "GET THEM!" and "THEY'RE IMPOSTERS!", and other similar words which made the guards jump into action. A few reached for their swords, others tried to get their bows. But then a most unexpected thing happened. There was noise up from above and everyone could hear Juquido scream... and surprisingly, his screams seemed to get closer and closer to the ground. Everyone looked up and were stunned at what they saw.

Truly, this situation had just gotten even more chaotic. It seemed that Painthead somehow had managed to escape, steal a soldier's sword and jump out of the window together with Juquido, holding the governor hostage. He was now gliding on the wind, towards the ground. He yelled something at Juquido, which made the governor only more enthusiastic to scream. Painthead was still covered with the paint that Ash had poured on him and Ash had this vague feeling that Painthead wasn't done with him yet. The echidna safely landed near Ash and Erma and immediately held the sword inches away from Juquido's throat.

"I want all guards gone through there!" he yelled, while pointing at the big gate that gave entrance to the real prison. Sending the prisoners there too was useless, since those prisoners didn't care one bit about Juquido. The guards were hesitating, but after Painthead repeated his threat, they all hurried through the gate. The gate leading outside on the other side was still open and after all the guards and soldiers had left the place, Painthead slowly walked away towards the gate to freedom. Ash, Erma and the rest of the prisoners saw their chance to escape and hurried towards the gate... a few seconds later, they had their freedom back... at least, as long as Painthead had Juquido as hostage, they were safe. This unintentionally made everyone's freedom depend on that one echidna. Painthead knew that and accepted it for now. When arriving at the gate, he yelled:

"If I see anyone following me, I'll kill this guy immediately!"

With that he stepped outside and motioned Ash to close that gate. Ash listened to him and did what he wanted. As soon as the gate closed, Painthead said, "Quick, we gotta get out of here!" he then turned to Juquido and added menacingly, "You better not try to escape or slow us down, cause it will only make your situation worse! Understood?"

Juquido silently nodded.

"So," one of the wolves said after a while, when the prison was but a mere dot on the horizon, "where are we heading?"

"I, and with that, I mean me and not you guys, am going back to echidna-territory. I don't care what you guys are gonna do."

After these words, the prisoners, who probably knew each other already, looked at one another and silently came to an agreement.

"We won't allow you to make that decision alone," one of the wolves calmly said. The echidna, who had turned his head away already, turned around furiously and with an angry expression on his face, he looked at the wolf.

"I determine what I do! Now go away! I don't need you anymore!"

The wolf was not impressed.

"What do you plan to do? Fight us? That's 1 against 10, and even if the mongoose and the squirrel don't participate, it's still one against eight. We don't care about that guy, so you can't use him either."

Painthead was burning inside from anger.

"Fine," he said, spitting out the words, "What do you suggest?"

"First of all, a truce. We don't want you to betray everyone else, now do we?" the wolf said, while sticking out his hand to welcome the echidna temporarily in the group. The echidna's expression changed. He hadn't expected this. A bit surprised, he stuck out his hand and shook the wolf's, saying, "Knecapeon Mace, but I am called Kneecaps most of the time."

"Mark the Wolf," the owner of the other hand said.

"_I'm sure I've heard that name somewhere before," _Ash thought.

"Okay, so what now?" Kneecaps asked.

"Me and my group," Mark said, "have ties to the Arctic Freedom Fighters. Since our homes are ruined now, I think we should go to their hiding place now. But I have my doubts about if they'd let you in, Kneecaps," Mark said.

"You can trust me... I won't betray you!"

"Suuuuuuure you won't," a female wolf said untrustingly.

And so they went on... Ash had some interest in Kneecaps now, firstly, because he was with the echidna's, the ones that had captured his wife, and secondly, because he had heard his name somewhere before... and suddenly, the truth came to him! Knuckles had told him about a certain Knecapeon Mace, his young brother, while the Chaotix were appointed to guard them on Mina's tour. Could it be this was Knuckles' brother? He wanted to know all of this now!

"Uhm, Kneecaps, can I ask you something?"

Kneecaps turned his head around. He narrowed his eyes a bit and said, "You're that guy that poured paint on my head, making me a walking and talking rainbow of some sorts! Why would I do YOU a favor?"

"_Hmm... Maybe it's not so smart to start with a question after all..." _Ash thought. Nevertheless, he asked anyway."Ever heard of someone called Knuckles, Kneecaps?" Ash said.

Kneecaps, who had his head turned away from Ash already, abruptly stopped with walking and seemed like he had frozen to the ground the instant Ash finished those words. Since they were walking behind everyone else, the rest didn't notice this immediately. Slowly, Kneecaps turned around and with an angry expression he stared into Ash's face.

"_Maybe speaking to him in the first place was a bad decision," _Ash thought, regretfully.

"Who?" Kneecaps asked with a dangerous tone in his voice, which frightened the mongoose.

"N-no-one..." Ash tried. Of course, saying this only spurred Kneecaps to ask more.

"Who?" Kneecaps repeated with the same tone. A cold sweat came over Ash.

"Kn-Kn-Knuckles," Ash quickly said, as if speed could make the situation less tenser for him.

"How do you know him!" Kneecaps now almost yelled. The rest, who were now about 20 meters far from where the two were standing, noticed they lost two members and looked back.

"They're fighting again," Erma said annoyed, while she walked back.

In the meantime, Ash answered Kneecaps's question.

"He was a friend of mine, pre-NM*. I once heard from him he had a younger brother, called Knecapeon Mace, nicknamed Kneecaps and..."

He was interrupted by Kneecaps, who apparently decided he wasn't interested in how Ash knew Knuckles after all. "Do you know if he's still alive?"

Erma, who heard this sentence, raised an eyebrow and stood still a few meters away from them.

"After the fall of New Mobotropolis, I have only seen him once. It was 5 years later. He lead a group of Freedom Fighters and fought for freedom, mainly against the humans and the echidna's. But that's all I know."

Kneecaps was lost in thoughts. His pupils were only dots and his teeth were clenched together, as were his fists. Everyone else looked at him amazed.

"Are you sure he's alive now?" Kneecaps said, turning his head towards Ash. His tone was different. It was a desperate tone.

"I think so. Your brother isn't one to go down easily," Ash said reassuringly.

"I want you to take me to the place you last saw him!" Kneecaps demanded.

"Whoa, whoa... easy."

That's when a good deal came floating into Ash's mind. "I have an idea. I am looking for someone that's inside the echidna-prison. If you can help me free her, than I'll be willing to bring you to the place where I last met Knuckles," Ash said, holding out his hand invitingly, "Deal?"

Kneecaps smiled a little. Heh," he said. He shook Ash's hand, "Deal!"

**Part 3: The Start of Confusion**

"This is..." Quinzillie began. He was silent for a few seconds and then said, "What is this?"

Knuckles slowly stepped towards the capsules and looked inside.

"I bet the humans are behind this," Brendon said angrily.

"Oh, really?" Quinzillie asked sarcastically. "I think that the fact these experiments are here in a highly protected lab, doesn't immediately mean the humans are behind this."

With this he stated how obvious and unnecessary Brendon's last statement was. Brendon just ignored him.

"What should we do, Knuckles?" Miles asked.

Of course, Knuckles was already pondering about what to do and hadn't found an answer yet.

"Let's play table tennis while Knuckles overthinks his next step," Quinzillie suggested. He again got completely ignored. Quinzillie turned around, planning to walk to the door. However, there was something unexpected in his way.

"Humans!" Quinzillie screamed, while jumping aside, barely escaping from a human's sword. It seemed someone had noticed there was something going on and had sneaked up from behind to kill them unexpectedly. While the other three turned around, Quinzillie drew his sword and blocked another attack from the human. Seeing he was discovered and now had little chance of surviving on his own, he ran out of the room and into the corridor, screaming like a madman that they were being invaded by an army of foxes and echidnas. Quinzillie stormed into the corridor, only to hear the guy scream his lungs out of his body while said body was nowhere to be found.

"He escaped!" Quinzillie said, "We gotta get out of here, Knuckles!"

Miles and Brendon turned around and walked towards the door. Knuckles, however, didn't move an inch from where he was standing. Miles noticed this and yelled, "Knux! We gotta go! There's no time to free them!"

Knuckles turned around, looked at Miles and said, "Yes, there is."

With that, he drew his sword and with all his might, he hit the glass from one of the capsules. The glass shattered the instant the sword made impact. Knuckles turned away, but still got some nasty cuts from the pieces of glass flying around. The liquid inside the capsule flowed onto the ground, making the iron floor extremely slippery.

"Come on, guys," Brendon yelled, "If we don't go now, we'll get caught!"

Brendon hadn't even finished his sentence when, from outside, Quinzillie yelled, "They're coming! Knuckles, let's get out of here now!"

"NO!" was Knuckles' fierce answer, "I'm staying here. It's our duty to free these guys. Get in here and block the door!"

"Are you mad?" Quinzillie shrieked.

"YES! Now do what I say!" Knuckles yelled back, adding a few decibels to his yell.

Quinzillie turned back into the reluctantly and closed the door. Brendon blocked the door with some heavy device. At the same time, Miles took a look at the panel that supposedly was connected to the capsules. A quick look told him what was what and after pressing some buttons, the liquid inside the other two capsules started to dissipate, slowly, most likely flowing away through a hole in the bottom. Meanwhile, the fox that had been in the now broken capsule, opened his eyes and stared at Knuckles.

"Who're you?"

"Knuckles. We're here to free you!" Knuckles said.

Now, to fully understand this situation, we have to switch over to the movements of the humans and get some background information. The man that discovered them was a new guy at the security of the laboratory. His name was Thomas Flynn. Thomas was guarding his part of the laboratory that day like always. Most corridors were empty and only once or twice, he could have the pleasure of seeing a employee rushing from one room to another. It was forbidden to leave doors open in the laboratory, for behind these doors, there was some incredibly secret stuff and this laboratory didn't want guards and other unauthorized persons to know about what was behind those doors. All things considered, Thomas's job was boring. He was staring at steel walls, doors, ceilings and floors all day long and nothing else. You can imagine how glad he was when he saw a door opened. Even a new guy could guess that either someone was being careless, which meant he could report him, or there were intruders here. He silently sneaked towards the door and when he looked inside, he saw three echidnas and a fox. He immediately concluded that these were soldiers from the enemy's army, cause why else would three echidnas and a fox risk their lives to come all the way here other than steal secrets from this laboratory? He silently drew his sword and sneaked up on the echidna closest to him. Normally, he should have reported this and handle this with back-up, but Thomas finally saw his chance to have some fun and decided to take them on all by himself, with the element of surprise by his side. And he had probably succeeded, wasn't it for Quinzillie's random decision to walk back to the door to see if there were enemies in the corridor.

After a very short sword fight, Thomas decided that retreating was the best thing to do. As we know, he ran out of the door and screamed that they were being attacked by echidnas and foxes. His screams certainly had some effect. Doors opened and humans in white coats looked outside to see Thomas running down the corridor, spraying his message around, so to speak.

The employees weren't the only ones to catch Thomas' screaming.

"Thomas, what's wrong!" a familiar voice came from a side-passage. Thomas stopped running and turned around. It happened to be the head of the security.

"We're under attack! There were echidnas and foxes in room B17. And there are more around the laboratory in the woods!"

That last sentence was completely untrue, but since he thought that a whole army was attacking them and he only saw four guys, he could only conclude that the rest was waiting in the forest.

"WHAT?" the head of the security, whom I'll call HOS for now, yelled. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and yelled, "Hello, Johnson, are you there! We're under attack! We've got hostiles in room B17 and around the laboratory! Contact the nearby military base and send everyone to room B17! FAST!"

And this was the start of the confusion. Because of the flawed conclusions of one security guard, this laboratory would soon change into complete chaos.

**Author's Note:**

**Yes, I'm back! I'M BACK BABY! OH YEAH! It's been too long and I want to continue this story. I'm sorry you had to wait such a long time. But now I'm back, I hope you had a fun time reading this and please review at will! =D**

**Oh, yeah, I wanna tell you about this forum I've been on from last year December now. It's a Archie Sonic the Hedgehog forum, where the writer and the staff of the comic are the admins. It's called Bumbleking (look it up on Google and you'll find it) and it'd be great if you joined... we're all a bunch of crazy guys, so... yeah... (don't feel forced, though ;) )**

**Disclaimer: Every character belongs to their rightful owner. As does every SEGA-character belong to... well... SEGA, of course...**

**Cya later guys!**


	9. Silence Before The Storm

**Part 1: Reggils In A Tight Corner **

The silence in the room was almost scary... only the sound of a pen writing on paper and the faint breathing of a human filling the room. However, its silence didn't mean emptiness, as anyone who cared to look inside it would see. Expensive collectors items, mostly old swords, were hanging on the beige wall. Every corner of the room was decorated with plants and on the floor lay a magnificently made carpet, created even before the Great Wall and had once hung in the Palace of Acorn. At the back of the greatly decorated room was a heavy, wooden bureau that screamed "dignified". There were numerous items placed on this beautiful piece of wood and everything had its own place. Behind this great bureau, and also the very being that owned this room, was Björn Reggils. He was busy writing a report with utmost concentration. A frown adorned his face as he stopped for a moment to give his fingers some rest. A single knock on the door made Reggils look up and glare at it in distaste, as if it was the door's fault that he was being interrupted.

"Yeah?" he said, giving the person behind the door permission to open it and step inside. The one who did so was a young, blue fox.

"Ah, Ryan. What is it?" Reggils asked in a friendly tone.

"Mr. Whitts wishes to speak to you, Mr. Reggils!" Ryan replied, coming to attention and smartly saluting him.

"Mr. Whitts? Why would he want to speak to me?" Reggils wondered.

"I have no idea, sir," Ryan answered.

Reggils glared at the young fox. "It was a rhetorical question. I wasn't asking your opinion and I frankly couldn't care less of it. You can go. Tell Mr. Whitts I will be there in a few minutes."

"Yessir! Rightaway, sir!" Ryan said loudly before leaving, neatly and silently closing the door behind him. Reggils sighed.

"_Mr. Whitts. Why the heck does he want to speak to me... I haven't done anything wrong, right?"_

A few minutes later, Reggils was knocking on a door himself, awaiting an answer from behind it. Ironically, he got the same answer he had given the young fox who had come to him earlier.

"Yeah?"

Björn Reggils silently opened the door and stepped in, his eyes falling on Dylan Whitts, a colonel in the army and currently the one being the highest in command in Vulpes City. Reggils saluted.

"Ah, Reggils. No need to be so formal. I know you, after all."

"_That's Mr. Whitts for ya."_

"You wished to speak to me?" Reggils asked.

Whitts completely ignored his question and stood up, walking over at the other side of the bureau he was sitting at and pushed one of the chairs in front of his bureau backwards, so a person could take a seat. Whitts gestured that Reggils needed to sit. And so Reggils did, while Whitts walked back to his own seat. Sitting again, he opened a drawer and grabbed a bottle filled with what Reggils could only assume was liquor in it. He put it on his bureau, afterwards pulling two small cups out of the same drawer. Without asking if Reggils wanted any or not, he filled the small cups to the brim and shoved one towards Reggils, while putting the bottle back. He had been silent all that time, making Reggils a bit nervous. Whitts knew how to make his underlings feel uneasy and out of place. After doing this, he just resumed what he had been doing before Reggils had entered the room. He looked through some files and began reading them, now and then sipping from his cup. After some time, he looked up and saw that Reggils hadn't taken a single sip from his cup.

"Aren't you thirsty?" he asked.

"Uhm... no, sir. I don't drink alcohol," Reggils' answered.

"Oh... then do you mind if I take yours?" Whitts asked.

"Not at all, sir... not at all."

"Good," Whitts said. He gave a slight nod, drank the last bit that was in his own cup and then started on Reggils'. And again, he resumed reading the files. After the second cup was also empty, Whitts looked up again at Reggils and asked, "Do you know what files I'm reading?"

"No, sir, I do not," Reggils answered, truthfully, "I can't tell from here."

"Hmm..." Whitts' nodded, looking thoughtful. He then turned around the files and shoved it towards Reggils. The fox looked down and read:

**FILE 2495194: Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters**

"I'll ask again: do you know this file?"

"Yessir, I do. This is the file record of everything we know about the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters, both in Vulpes City and in other locations."

"Good boy," Whitts said, smiling.

Reggils didn't react. He got a slight idea what this conversation was going to be about. He remained calm and silently awaited Whitts to pick up the conversation again.

"I've seen the group has shown recent activity. Why didn't you personally report that as always?" Whitts's questioned.

"We thought it unnecessary to do it personally when you could read it in the files, sir."

"Well... I didn't read through the whole file... so report to me. What is this "recent activity" you are talking about?"

"Yessir. New individuals, known as Miles "Tails" Prower, Amy Rose, Ray the Flying Squirrel, Bean the Dynamite, Bark the Polar Bear, Nack the Weasel, Nic the Weasel, Speed the Fox and Star the Vixen have recently joined the group..."

He was interrupted by Whitts. "You know all their names?" Whitts asked, not showing a single expression of surprise.

"We had an infiltrator in the Freedom Fighter group, sir!"

"Ah, yeah, I remember inquiring about an infiltrator being brought in the group. What do you mean "had"?"

"The infiltrator was caught and killed by the leader, Flight the Fox," Reggils said, making it seem like Flight killed Näslund mercilessly, as well as leaving out all that happened surrounding Näslund's death.

"How crude," Whitts replied. "Truly a woman that is a danger for our society."

"Agreed, sir! Oh, and sir, I have something else to note on the names of the new individuals," Reggils said.

"Is that so?" Whitts replied.

Reggils nodded. "Most of the new people are old Freedom Fighters from when New Mobotropolis still existed, sir!"

This interested Dylan Whitts most dearly. "What did you say?" he said calmly, yet giving away a hint of surprise.

"Miles "Tails" Prower and Amy Rose are both old members from the Knothole Freedom Fighters. Ray the Flying Squirrel once was a member of the Chaotix. Bean the Dynamite, Nack the Weasel and Bark the Polar Bear have been mercenaries for the most part of their lives. Nic the Weasel has been like that for some time too, but for the most part, was a secret agent of G.U.N.," Reggils explained.

"Hmm... I see... interesting," Whitts said, stroking his gray beard.

He sat like that for a few seconds, while Reggils waited impatiently for Whitts to start the conversation again. Whitts finally stopped stroking his beard and looked intensely at Reggils.

"There still remains one question: why hasn't this group been arrested yet?"

Reggils had expected this question sooner or later and had prepared himself for the question. "There are a few reasons, colonel. First of all, they work very carefully... the things they do are well thought out, as much as it pains me to say that. Furthermore, their headquarters is located in the slums of the city, which are quite big, sir," Reggils answered.

"So, what has that infiltrator been doing all this time? Sleeping? I requested an infiltrator in order to find out the location of their base!" Whitts said with a calm but quite intimidating voice. A cold sweat came over Reggils as he tried to get from under this unfortunate development.

"I-Its all in the files, sir!" Reggils said.

Whitts calmly picked up the files and opened the exact page where the reason was given. Seeing as the file was big and there was a slight chance that he coincidentally got the right page rightaway, he somehow marked the page, which meant that everything in this conversation was planned.

"The reason given here is, "Emney Näslund was not told about the exact location of the place." Is that the real reason, Björn Reggils?" Whitts said while throwing an intimidating look in Reggils' direction. Reggils felt the trap Whitts set up for him closing in more and more every second this conversation continued.

"Y-yes, sir," Reggils answered.

"Really, Björn? I could name at least five things that don't make sense at all with that explanation. Now, do you want me to name every single thing or do you could answer me truthfully this time?" Whitts said calmly.

"I-I-I... I'll tell you the truth. See, when Näslund got involved in the organization, he developed a crush on one of the nurses. Not wanting her to die in a raid, he promised himself not to disclose information about the location of the headquarters. Since she was a nurse, she never went on missions, and so, he could still give us information about where the group would strike," Reggils said. He was afraid of the colonel's reaction, but all Whitts did was look up at the ceiling, while stroking his beard again.

"I see," he finally said.

"_Anti-climax," _Reggils thought.

"Then I have a new mission for you... I want you to bring those Freedom Fighters here in a week's time... and that time's starting now!"

"But... but," Reggils said, not believing his ears," they live in the slums! It could take years to find them!"

"STARTING NOW!" Whitts repeated a bit louder.

"Y-Yessir! I'll be on my way, sir!" Reggils quickly replied.

He left his chair and hurriedly walked over at the door. He grabbed the doorknob, but turned around there.

"Sir?" he said.

"Yes?"

"What happens if I don't complete the mission?"

"Then I'll make sure you won't be using that fancy office of yours again," Whitts answered, implying that Reggils would lose his job, and perhaps more. Reggils burned on the inside, but could control himself.

"Yessir!" Reggils said. He then quickly got outside. He still kept his cool and went to his office. He quickly opened the door, entered and closed the door. There were two seconds of silence before a series of severe curses filled up the room. Some by passers looked at the door strangely and quickly walked on. Reggils was still cursing when he heard someone knocking at his door yet agauin. He stopped cursing all of a sudden and quickly walked at his bureau. As soon as he sat down he said, "Come in."

The door opened very slowly and a new guy curiously peeked inside.

"I-I have a report for you, sir," the new guy said.

"Lay it on my desk and disappear," Reggils said bluntly.

"Yes, sir," the new guy quickly said. With quick steps he reached Reggils desk and neatly laid the report on the desk. He then disappeared as soon as possible. Reggils picked up the report and read what was written on the cover:

**REPORT 1295720247421 **

**FILED UNDER FILE 2495194**

When Reggils read what file it was filed under, he almost let the report fall out of his hands. Even though every file had a lot of numbers, Reggils was very familiar with this particular file.

"_The Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters!" _it came to him.

He quickly opened the report and began reading the few papers that the report consisted of. It came down to the fact that multiple witnesses had seen a part of the resistance leaving the city in a packed car.

"_Yes!" _was all Reggils thought.

**Part 2: Uhm... oops!**

Not far away from where Reggils's office was an airport. Every day, foxes came into and out from the planes that landed on the landing strips. It was recently built and a beauty to look at. In front of the entrance were multiple fountains. The grass was cut with precision, and it looked like the gardener personally measured every single blade of grass. There were flowers planted everywhere, but always in a patron. Someone with a bit of interest of this sort of things, could at least enjoy himself here for hours, just by looking at everything. There were benches enough in the "airpark" as it was called by most inhabitants of the city. We move to three persons sitting on of the benches. These persons being Glass the Fox, James Michael Summet and Enzan the Hedgehog.

"_Why", _you may ask_, "Why are three members of the Kit-Kat Freedom Fighters sitting in front of the airport?"_

The answer is quite simple. A mission. That wasn't really surprising, now wasn't it? The mission was practically the fact that a Freedom Fighter from Hilos City, a city up north in the country, came here. Things happened there and his life was in terrible danger if he would have stayed there. There was only one solution: Escape and join another group. And that's why James, Enzan and Glass were sitting on that light blue wooden bench, waiting for a person that fit the description they had been given to come out of the airport. They had been here for half an hour, but it felt like two hours. The reason for that was sitting right next to them: the slightly crazy Glass. No-one knew why Flight had taken in so many crazy people for their group; it was a mystery. Maybe she did it for fun, maybe because she knew they had nowhere else to go, maybe because the food in asylums was so bad that some of the people jumped out of their windows (though it is believed that there are other reasons regarding these incidents)... no-one knew. What they did know (Unfortunately from experience) was that going on a mission with a crazy person was torture.

"Y'know... I sometimes wonder how a small circle, filled with yellow, can light up this whole planet," Glass wondered aloud. She got irritated glares from James and Enzan.

"I mean, there is no possible explanation how something so small can light something so big. Look, this flashlight is bigger than the sun," Glass said, grabbing a flashlight out of her pocket and holding it right in front of James and Enzan, "But it can barely reach the other side of this park."

With those words, she threw her arms in the air, as to show her two companions how big this park was.

James and Enzan both sighed and hoped for the thousandth time today that, please, let there not be any delay or a hijacking at this moment, for they feared for their own sanity to disappear if they had stay much longer with Glass... Glass didn't notice and wouldn't mind if she did. She just went on wondering things. Out loud. She never, ever shut up. Unfortunately. She looked into the sun for some time and then said, "Hey! That's weird! There are purple... things... floating in the air! They're all circles! Look! THERE!" Glass said, pointing her finger forwards, accidentally at a mother with her child. She looked at Glass for a moment, thought about saying something, but decided that she'd spare the girl the sound of her voice and quickly walked away. Glass was silent for a few moments, giving her two colleagues some rest.

But she soon destroyed that rest by asking, "Enzan? Can you buy me a muffin? One with chocolate. The one with the most chocolate! Be sure to weigh them... I want the biggest!"

Enzan blinked two times while looking at Glass and then said, "No."

He then turned away from Glass, who had her mouth still opened, ready to say "Thank you" because she obviously thought he would leap to fulfill her every whim. She considered what to do next and said, "Fine, I'll buy it myself!"

"NO, WAIT!" was James' immediate reaction, "No... you ain't gonna buy nothin', y'hear me!"

"Ain't... buy... nothing? So that means I can buy something! Jippee!" Glass said excitedly.

"Wait, no! You can't buy noth... er... anything!" James replied.

"Awww... why not?" Glass said disappointed.

"Because I say so! Geez, sometimes you act like a five-year old!" James sat back annoyed.

"But I'm hungry!"

James looked at her again. He was almost at the point of exploding. And Glass noticed that in his eyes.

"Are... you mad?" she asked, just to be sure.

James didn't answer the question, but instead looked away. Glass was quiet... finally!

"Enzan... when's that dude going to arrive here? He should have been here an hour ago."

Enzan wanted to give an answer, but Glass interrupted again.

"Time-difference," was all she said. Glass might be crazy, but sometimes had these very clear moments where she showed how smart she actually could be. Enzan and James looked again at Glass, who was staring at a small bug, walking over her hand.

"Time-difference?" James asked.

"Between Hilos City and Vulpes City, there's a one hour time difference. When that raven said that he'd arrive at 7 pm, he was still in Hilos City, and he had calculated the time of arrival, not taking the time difference into account."

Glass diverted her attention from the bug to the two baffled faces of Enzan and James. She went on. "We've been waiting a whole hour for absolutely nothing. Well, you have... I have enjoyed myself in the meantime."

She was silent for a long time, simply looking at the faces of her two companions and then said, "You look funny when you look at me like that."

Immediately, Enzan and James changed their expressions and looked at each other.

"Why do the craziest ones also always have the best answers?" James asked.

Enzan shrugged. He didn't care. He did care about the fact, though, that they had been waiting here an hour... for nothing.

"Hey, look... isn't that the raven we're supposed to pick up? I almost forgot!" Glass suddenly said. James and Enzan looked up and searched for the raven Glass was referencing to. And indeed, he fit the description.

"YES!" James said relieved, "Okay, you stay here, while I make contact with him, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted away, at the raven who was looking around the park. As soon as the raven noticed him, he stood still and blinked bewilderedly at James.

"Hey, there," James said, "good you came. We have to go as soon as possible! Quick! They might see you."

With that, he grabbed the raven's hand and took him with him to the bench.

"Sorry, sir, may I..." the raven tried to ask as they walked at the wooden bench at a fast pace.

"My name's James. James Michael Summet."

"Oh... Mr. Summet. Can I ask you a question?"

"Not now! We first need to get to the headquarters."

"WHAT! YOU HAVE PICKED UP THE RAVEN?" Flight yelled, when James reported the they had found the one they were looking for and brought him in.

"Y-Yes... that was what we were supposed to do!" Summet said, not understanding why Flight was so angry all of a sudden.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO THAT! YES, INDEED...!"

The door was thrown open and an angry Taylor stood in front of the door opening.

"Could you keep the caps lock screaming down a bit! I wish to drink my coffee, instead of seeing it hopping out of my cup by the sound waves you're sending through the walls! Good? Thank you!"

She slammed the door back in its place and walked away angrily, leaving a baffled Flight, James and Enzan (Glass had already gone back to her own home in the slums).

"Ahem," Flight cleared her throat after a while, "I was saying... you were ordered to pick up a raven. The case is, however, that you couldn't accomplish the mission."

"Wait, what? What do you mean?" Enzan asked confused.

"Steffan the Raven was arrested on the plane..."

James and Enzan's faces screamed "WHAT" now.

"W-what!" James said.

"But... if that raven isn't Steffan... then who is it?"

"Where is he now?" Flight asked.

"We showed him the room where Steffan was supposed to stay from now on and left him there!"

The three looked at each other for a second, then stood up and ran out of the apartment, slamming the door against the wall. The door from the room next to them was thrown open again, showing an angry Taylor again. Her expression changed radically however, when she saw that Enzan was coming at her at full speed. Both their eyes widened and they then clashed. It was a beautiful sight to behold and while Flight and James rushed further towards the room they left the raven, Enzan rubbed against his forehead, trying to make the pain go away. He had hit his head against Taylor's and it goes without saying that such a collision hurts. And it has to be noted that Enzan and Taylor were not on good terms and never had been. There's always hostility between certain members in a group. It is inevitable.

"Ouch..." Taylor said, standing up. Looking at Enzan she said mockingly, "Oh, it had to be you and your hard head, eh?"

Enzan glared at her angrily and said with a collected voice, "Save the insulting comments for later. I don't have time for your blabbering."

With that, Enzan stood up and sped after Flight and James.

"How dare you!" Taylor yelled at him. She shook her fist and then angrily entered her room again. She was not in a good mood today.

Fast enough, Flight reached the door of Steffan's room. She threw it open and looked inside, ready to see any scene possible... from a broken down raven, to an enraged raven screaming at them. But neither was the case. The raven was calmly laying on his head, staring at the ceiling as if that was the most interesting place to look at in the room.

"I feel honored being kidnapped by the Freedom Fighters, really," the raven said calmly, with a slight smile on his face. "This place isn't really bad anyways... I'd almost say I wouldn't wanna leave this place."

He turned to Flight, James and Enzan, who had just arrived.

"W-Wait," Flight said, "This is all a misunderstanding. We are not Freedom Fighters and we did not kidnap you! My relatives just picked up the wrong raven. They were supposed to pick up a friend of mine."

"I'm sorry, but that's truly a poor excuse," the raven said, "First of all, that hedgehog can't be your relative. It's prohibited for a fox to marry a hedgehog or even have a relationship with one. Death penalty. And you'd be some sort of fox-hedgehog hybrid anyway. Aside from that, that other fox said we had to go to "headquarters" as soon as possible. It's still a guess, but the most likely probability is that I have either been kidnapped by Freedom Fighters or that your subordinates picked up the wrong raven."

Flight blinked and then said, "Who are you?"

"Quote," was the raven's answer. "A journalist."

**Part 3: Reasoning Is Your Best Friend…**

Mar yawned. It had been two days since they left and they still had a week to go. At least, that's what Noah estimated. She looked at her sister next to her. She was asleep. They'd been sitting in this car for five hours now. Her butt started to hurt and she wanted to stretch her limbs, which was impossible in this packed car. Add the fact that the road they'd been driving on for the past four hours was not asphalted and bumpy all over and you get an irritated Mar. She looked behind her, through the rear window of the car and saw the other car driving ten meters behind her. She sighed, then yawned. Following that, she leaned forward towards the driver and the sitting next to the driver and asked:

"When's the next stop? I need some movement or I won't be able to get out anymore."

The one next to the driver, Nack, turned his head to Mar and said:

"Don't worry. It won't take long anymore before the next break. Noah said to me a few minutes ago that we'll be spending the night at the place we'll be stopping soon."

"Actually, we just arrived at that place," Noah said, making Mar a lot happier all of a sudden.

Adding an action to his words, he slowly pushed the brakes with his foot. The rear lights of his car began to shine, signaling the car behind him that they were going to stop here.

A few minutes later, everyone was moving their bodies to get everything a bit loose. Mar stretched her arms wide open and gazed up at the sky. The sun was about to go under. There were no clouds and a chilly wind blew through the blue sky. She loved this weather. Though a few clouds would make a great sundown. She let her arms fall beside her body and shrugged, then walked at the car to help unload the two cars. They were going to spend the night at the place and in forests like this, it gets dark pretty quickly. She looked around and saw her sister and Amy sitting on the ground on their knees, bent over a few dead branches. The wind made it difficult to get the fire going, so one shielded the area off from the wind, while the other tried to light the branches with a lightener.

"Wait, wait, wait," Mar said, making Amy and Taylor look up at her.

"What is it? Are we doing something wrong?" Taylor asked her sister.

"Umm…well… wouldn't it be better if you'd surround the campfire with stones and rocks? Wouldn't it be dangerous to do it without rocks?" Mar commented.

"Hmm…you're right," Amy decided. She stood up, "Mar, could you help your sister? I'll be searching for some good stones."

"Okay," Mar replied. She took the position Amy had been in a few seconds ago, shielding the area with her hands and body. Amy walked away into the forest, to look for rocks.

She had withstood some hard times in her life since the fall of New Mobotropolis. Just like the other few that were against the secluded nations-plan, she had fled New Mobotropolis after the assembly of the citizens of New Mobotropolis had turned into a riot. Scrambled and disorientated, she wandered around in the Great Forest, until she recognized the place where. Hoping that maybe other would be there as well, she was disappointed when she arrived there and saw the ruins of the only memory of Knothole. There she had met Tails and Ray. From that moment, they had lived together. Fighting for justice and against the cruel governments of all those nations. She had missed her old Freedom Fighter-buddies.

"Here are some rocks," Bean said, coming at them with a load of rocks. Taylor and Mar looked up again.

"Thanks," Mar said.

"Oh…Amy is still searching for some in the forest," Taylor said.

"I'm surprised she's still searching. She left half an hour ago," Mar thought aloud.

That caught Bean's attention.

"Whoa, what?" he exclaimed.

"Do you think something happened to Amy?" Mar asked worriedly.

"This area is quite rocky. It would take around ten minutes to find some stones. I gathered that in five minutes," Bean said, pointing at the pile of stones and rocks he had thrown on the ground near the dead branches. Needless to say, this was not right!

"Guys," Bean yelled at everyone," has anyone seen Amy?"

Nobody seemed to have seen her since she left.

"Did something happen?" Tails asked, with a tent peg in his left hand and a small hammer in his right.

Bean explained the situation.

"What do we do?" Nic said, verbalizing the question that was now floating in many heads.

It was silent for a moment. An owl flew over their heads, probably chasing a mouse or something of that kind. Suddenly, there was a noise of cracking branches, coming from behind one of the cars. Everyone was surprised when they saw Amy coming out of the bushes, dragging one of her legs and abrasions everywhere.

"What…what happened to you!" Noah, the one who was closest to her, asked with an astonished face. He ran over to her and grabbed her at her waistline, supporting her, in case she were to fall.

"Don't worry," Amy responded, "I fell into a pit, probably a poacher's trap for wild animals."

A collected sigh of relief sounded through the camp. But Amy wasn't done speaking yet.

"What we should worry about is the danger coming at us this night," Amy said.

"What do you mean?" Noah said, slowly releasing Amy from his grip. Everyone moved a bit closer to Amy.

"While I was in the pit, I overheard a conversation between two fox-soldiers," Amy said.

Shock could be read from many faces.

"What did they say?" Bean asked.

"They were talking about their girlfriends. They did not say anything that is of interest to us. But the fact that they are here is the problem. No-one lives in this area, so they were here for a reason. From their conversation I could conclude that they were soldiers and that they were not alone."

"This is not good…" Noah said, in thought.

Everyone was silent for a few moments.

"Can we go start the barbeque now?" Star asked out of nowhere," I'm hungry. We brought marshmallows, right? And chicken? And chocolate flavored gravy? And…"

"Silent, please!" an irritated Nack yelled at her. Star quickly shut her trap.

"So, basically it comes down to the following," Noah said thoughtfully, trying to get all his thoughts lined up, if not the others', "We know that there is an army located near us. This army is most likely here because of us. We don't know where they are. We don't know any of their plans and we have no idea what the size of that army is. Also, we don't know how they know we're here and if they know exactly where we are. They could have followed us by helicopter, which could mean they know where we are and with how many maybe. There are a few things we can do: one, we could stay here and trust that we won't be attacked tonight. Next morning, we will be extra cautious and try to outrun the foxes, in any way necessary. Second is to break up this camp at once and leave now. It's an unexpected move and might throw the foxes off, but we would also be a lot more tired and might not be in a good condition if it comes to a fight. A third option I see is to leave two or three people here and to search for their camp. What are your thoughts?" This last question was directed to everyone else.

It was silent again. Everyone was thinking.

"To be honest," Bean said, "I think the first option is not a good one. If they have a helicopter, then we have no chance of escaping them. If they don't have one, then there either is a spy in our midst, there is a tracking device somewhere on our cars or other stuff or they have something else we can't think of that we haven't thought of yet."

Noah nodded agreeing.

"In addition to what Bean said," Nic reasoned, "option two is also a bad idea and plan for the reasons you gave."

"So…does that leave us with option number three?" Ray wondered.

"If there are no other options, then, yes… that is the best option we have," Noah answered Ray's question, "The next question is, of course, how are we gonna do it?"

"I suggest leaving two or three people here and in groups of three searching for their camp," Bean proposed.

"Well…there are a few problems with that plan," Tails said, stroking his chin, deep in thoughts, "First of all, if there are only three people here, they are hopeless if they get attacked by 50 men. Second, we have no devices to keep in contact with each other while we're searching for the army. This is a huge area. Aside from that, we are not familiar with this forest. The foxes most certainly are. They are stationed here for who knows how long, after all. They have a huge advantage. The fact we're not familiar with this area also means people could get lost. And that's the last we need on our pile of problems."

"So…we're basically back to square one?" Mar asked wondering.

"You could say it like that," Taylor replied to her sister.

"No, not really," Amy said, "There is another thing we can do, outside of those three things."

Noah looked at Amy, interested in what Amy had in mind.

"What has your mind come up with?" he asked.

"We can wait for the attack and ambush 'em from behind or something like that."

"That certainly sounds like a good idea," Taylor commented. Mar nodded agreeing.

"You think so?" Amy said, slightly flattered by the fact that people complimented the plan.

"No, there's a huge problem," Noah said.

"Problem? What problem?" Amy asked.

"We don't know when they are going to strike They could just as well wait for a better moment and let us wait 3 days long."

"I think you're forgetting something," Amy said, "We made a few false conclusions. We have been reasoning that this army has been following us from the very beginning, yet we have also said that they know this place and that they're stationed here… that directly contradicts each other."

Bean blinked.

"Something must've gone wrong in our reasoning," he said, concluding that Amy was indeed true.

"I can tell you though, that the first conclusion is false and the second is right," Amy said with a smirk on her face, "those soldiers would only go into the forest if they would easily know the way back to their camp… that comes down to the fact that their camp is nearby. However, when I fell into that pit, I was already on my way back. The soldiers came from the direction I was coming from too, so if the camp would have been nearby, then I would obviously have discovered it, not?"

"Maybe it's an underground base!" Star mused aloud. No-one paid attention to her.

"However," Amy went on to say, "If this station has been here for a long time already, then the soldiers obviously know this area very well and it gives an explanation why those soldiers were there without a camp nearby."

"But then how do you know that they know about us?" Bean asked.

"We don't," was Amy's short answer.

"Doesn't that make this a bad plan?" Bean said.

"We don't need to know that information. If we wait this night and we get attacked, then they know about us… if they don't attack us, then they do not know about us."

"I see," Noah said, overthinking the whole plan one last time. Okay, then, let's give our plan a few details!"

**Author's Note:**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, the usual stuff. Sonic and all other Sega characters belong to Sega. All the characters from other people belong to their respective owners. Thanks to StarVix for doing her job as some sort of "editor". I can't thank you enough! :D**

**Yes, another chapter done… this and the previous chapter might be a bit boring, but this is the calm before the storm… we'll get to the adventurous and action stuff very soon ;)**

**Again, I invite you to BumbleKing. It's an awesome place and the admins are the comic's writer, his wife and a few pencillers and others like that. All on the comic's stuff… there's mature conversation there, among extremely funny moments. The admins are great… again, please come… I'd like to see a few of you guys there…**


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